The world's multimillionaires are flocking to Britain, helping to fuel the biggest boom in luxury property prices for three decades.
Since early this year prices have risen rapidly in central London, especially in the boroughs of Camden, Islington, Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and the City of London.
In August, estate agency Knight Frank, reported that prices were 36 per cent higher than 12 months earlier, a situation, the company's head of residential research, Liam Bailey, declared 'phenomenal'.
This is the fastest rate of price growth since 1979 which was a time of rampant inflation, so this property boom is bigger in real terms.
The price rises have rippled out to the west London boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham, and Richmond-Upon-Thames, and to the upper end of the country house market in the surrounding Home Counties. In East Sussex, the most active country market, values leapt 27 per cent over the past year, Knight Frank's figures reveal.
In London prices have risen fastest for large family homes such as 2Hyde Park Street in central London, and 34Arkwright Road in Hampstead, because these types of property are in the shortest supply. In the Home Counties, large country houses such as the GBP15million (HK$237 million) Marshcourt in Hampshire and the GBP3.5million Brooklands Farm in Surrey, command the highest price rises. In comparison, average prices across Britain increased about 10 per cent over the same period.