Suffolk town makes surprise appearance on millionaire hotspot list
Sudbury, a quiet market town in Suffolk, was the only place outside the M25 to feature in a new list of millionaire property hotspots.
Estate agent Hamptons compiled a list of postcodes in which at least five homes changed hands for more than £1 million last year. And, it found, the number of £1 million transactions rose from just one in 2013 to seven last year.
Sudbury ranks sixth in the list, behind Stoneleigh and Headley in Epsom and New Cross, Bethnal Green and Harrow in London. The top 10 is rounded out by three more London districts: Edgware, Brentford and Berrylands in Kingston-upon-Thames.
Towns such as Royal Tunbridge Wells and Oundle in East Northamptonshire also saw five or more £1 million-plus sales during the course of this year.
The hotspots, Johnny Morris, head of residential research at Hamptons, tells the Daily Telegraph, are: "Areas on the fringes of inner London that are currently on the up, markets in outer London benefiting from the flow of demand moving out from expensive inner boroughs, and the commuter belt."
The CO10 Sudbury postcode includes pretty tourist destinations such as Lavenham and Long Melford, but has a railway station with reasonable links into London. It forms part of the Babergh district, which came 11th in this year's Halifax Rural Areas Quality of Life Survey.
House prices in Sudbury rose by 12% last year, compared with 7.8% across the country as a whole.
"I think there is a link here between the high quality of life, beautiful countryside, relatively good access to London and low crime – it's a good place to live," town councillor Nigel Bennett tells the East Anglian Daily Times.
"In the CO10 postcode and the surrounding villages there are some very old and big properties as well as very modern ones."
The news comes as the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) says it expects UK house prices generally to rise by 1.5% this year, while values in London fall by 3.6%. The reason, it says, is 'years of over-performance'.
"A potential mansion tax, reduced overseas interest and hefty new stamp duty rates have hit demand for high value property," says the report's author, economist Nina Skero.
However, this state of affairs isn't expected to last long, with property values expected to rise by 2.7% in the capital and 2.3% across the UK next year.
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