Twice as many homes valued at more than £1million have been sold in Suffolk this year compared to last year, according to property website Rightmove.

Across the county, 105% more homes with a price tag of more than £1m have been sold in 2020 compared to 2019.

The news comes as the property website also announced that the expensive properties are typically selling 18 days faster than a year ago.

Across Britain, it now takes 63 days for such properties to find a buyer, compared with 81 days a year ago, they said.

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An expert in the Suffolk property market puts this change down to buyers wanting to move out of London during the pandemic.

Tim Dansie, director of Jackson Stops in Ipswich, said: “It’s difficult to measure exact weeks and months but it is a much stronger market and, as a result, a much faster market for houses over £1m this year than it was last year.

“And that’s really being driven by people coming out of London – who didn’t like sitting in their flats during lockdown.

“You can sell your two or three-bed end of terrace in London for £1.5m or £2m and come out and by somewhere really nice in Suffolk.

“I know where I’d prefer to live,” he added.

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Rightmove’s director of property data, Tim Bannister, said: “Houses in the £1m-plus market have always taken longer to find buyers than the wider market because of their higher price points, but our new analysis shows that wealthier buyers who are fortunate enough to be able to move to bigger homes have been driving this sector of the market to a pace not seen since back in 2014.

“Unsurprisingly, the counties seeing the biggest annual rise for sales agreed of £1m homes all benefit from beautiful coasts and countryside.

“Available stock in this price bracket is up around 2% compared to this time last year, which is the first time since 2018 that there’s been an annual jump, meaning there’s a little bit more choice for this group of buyers.”

Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank, added: “Demand in higher price brackets is more responsive to external events and we saw the same after the global financial crisis.

“Buyers who are less constrained by the mortgage market and negative sentiment around unemployment and the economy have been able to act on their desire for more space.”