MORE than 2,000 Scottish households became “property millionaires" last year as rising house prices saw the number of homes with a six digit price tag increase by a quarter.

A survey of property values at the top end of the market found that there are now 11,101 homes worth £1m or more north of the border, an increase of 2,264 from the last time the data was analysed in 2016.

These include traditional castles and mansions, but also smart town houses and a rising number of luxury detached new builds or penthouses on upmarket developments.

Edinburgh was found to be home to the highest concentration of top-end homes, according to the study by property website Zoopla.

The capital boasted 4,759 properties in the million pound-and-over bracket, accounting for 2 per cent of the city's total housing stock.

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Faisal Choudhry, Director of Scottish Research  and Residential Research at estate agents Savills, said that sales of properties at the highest end of the market has boomed in recent years.

He said: "The number of £1m sales during the past two years has been stable. The market has recovered from 2015, when the Scottish Government's Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) was introduced, which increased the amount of tax paid at the higher levels.

"In fact, last year saw the highest number of £1m sales since 2008 and the start of the economic downturn, outside of a brief period in 2015 when people were rushing to sell to avoid LBTT.

"The market has basically stabilised again, as we thought it would."

Top-end Sales recorded by Savills last year included that of a three-bedroom upper storey flat in Drumsheugh gardens, Edinburgh, a penthouse in Claremont Terrace, Glasgow and a £1.4 million new build home in Aberdeen.

Mr Choudhry said that wealthy buyers were attracted to Scotland because their money would go further here than down south.

He said: "Scotland's property market offers excellent value for money, compared to some areas of the south of England.

"There are also a very high quality of life, good schools, and excellent transport links associated with many of the hotspots such as Edinburgh."

He added that Brexit had already had an impact on property values, with wealthy investors seeking to put their cash into property.

Mr Choudhry said: "In times of political uncertainty investors will look for areas of stability, and few come more stable than Edinburgh."

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According to Registers of Scotland, there were 158 sales of properties worth £1m or more in 2016, falling slightly to 149 last year.

Overall, house prices rose by 4.4 per cent across Scotland. But in areas where the highest value homes are concentrated the increase was more sharp.

Official figures show that the average price of property in Edinburgh rise by 6.1 per cent, while property shot up by 13 per cent in East Dunbartonshire.

However Zoopla found that Scotland still lags behind much of the UK, and is ranked seventh on a 'bucks and mortar' league table of 11 British regions.

More than half of the nation's property millionaires are in London, which accounts for 430,720 of the total.

With large concentrations of property millionaires in London and the South East of England, the research found there are more than double the number of million-pound properties in Guildford, Surrey than there are across the whole of Wales.

Guildford was identified as the top million-pound property hotspot outside London, with 5,889 homes there valued at £1 million-plus.

Wales was found to have 2,223 homes worth £1 million or more.

Zoopla released the research to mark the launch of its new property calculator tool - million-pound-calculator.zoopla.co.uk - which gives home owners indications of when the value of their own property may eventually reach the £1 million mark.

Zoopla said places with particularly high concentrations of million-pound homes also include Cambridge, Reading, Oxford, St Albans, and Bristol

Lawrence Hall, spokesperson for Zoopla comments: “Whilst there might be a greater number of £1m+ properties than ever before, the data shows that they still only represent a small fraction of all UK housing stock. Our latest tool allows curious homeowners to dream a little and see when their home might hit the million-pound mark.”