The number of British properties sold for more than 1 million pounds surged in the first six months of 2004 after a fall in 2003, mortgage lender Halifax said on Saturday.
The research, which used official Land Registry house sale data, showed sales of million pound-plus properties were 61 percent higher in the first half of the year than in the same period a year earlier.
"The very top end of the housing market has strengthened," Halifax's Chief Economist Martin Ellis said in a statement.
"While a small number of areas in London continue to account for the overwhelming majority of 1 million pound sales, the incidence of properties valued above the 1 million threshold continues to spread across the country."
Almost two-thirds of million pound-plus sales in the first half of the year were accounted for by properties in London, but areas outside the capital also made their mark.
The districts of Barnsley, City of Nottingham, Coventry, Craven, Dover, Exeter, Forest of Dean, Northeast Lincolnshire, Teesdale and West Lothian all recorded their first house sales of over 1 million pounds during the period.
Britain's once-booming housing market has cooled in recent months. Monday's survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors showed UK house prices fell at their steepest pace in 9 years in the three months to September.
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