EDINBURGH continues to be by far and away the biggest centre for the sale of Scottish homes worth £1m or more, but the number of such deals has fallen drastically in a year, according to a survey by the Bank of Scotland.

There were 50 sales of £1m-plus houses in Edinburgh in the first six months of 2016, equating to 62 per cent of all such sales in Scotland, but the figure is down 17 per cent compared to the first six months of last year.

Overall, the number of such house sales in Scotland in the first half of 2016 was a third lower than in the first six months of 2015, the latest Million Pound Property Report from Bank of Scotland has found. The decrease from 120 in the first half of 2015 to 81 in the first six months of 2016 is in contrast to the 12 per cent increase seen across the whole of Britain for the same period.

While Scotland’s prime market was the only part of Britain to see a decrease in sales, it did see the highest increase in sales of houses under £1m, recording a nine per cent rise from the first half of last year to the first six months of 2016, compared to only two per cent for Great Britain as a whole.