SALES of £1 million properties are booming in the north-east despite a slowdown in the prime property market elsewhere.

Estate agents Savills said they handled record sales of homes worth £1m or more in Aberdeenshire during 2011, while a number of similar properties were snapped up in Ayrshire.

The two regions are bucking a trend which has seen a slight fall in the number of prime properties changing hands, although sales are still up from the house price slump three years ago.

Overall, Savills said they had sold 2206 homes worth £400,000 or more, compared to the 2355 recorded in 2010.

However, in Aberdeenshire there were 19 sales at £1m and above in 2011, almost double the figure recorded the year before.

Six houses in the region went for asking prices of more than £2m. There was also the sale of Aberdeen's first £3m home.

Ayrshire had six sales of houses valued at £1m or more, compared to only one in 2010 and two in 2009. The highest of these sales was Bargany House near Girvan which sold for £1.9m to buyers from Los Angeles.

Faisal Choudhry, head of Savills Research in Scotland, said that – while the oil boom in the north-east was fuelling property prices – buyers were still wary of paying over the odds.

He said: "Prime Scottish property looks increasingly good value, but only where it is marketed at an appropriate price and this has already begun to attract the attention of London buyers this year."