This is the kind of house you can buy for a million pounds

Millionaire’s shortbread is famously indulgent, Louis Farrakhan’s 1995 Million Man March re-set the civil rights agenda in America, and it is geological epochs, not human history, that are measured in millions of years. In short, a million is really rather a lot.

This is also true in the world of property – or at least it used to be. In 1716, the total cost of building St Paul’s Cathedral was calculated to be a (then huge) £1,095,556.

Today, though, there are many thousands of properties in the UK that are valued at more than £1m – in 2018 the number was estimated by Zoopla to be as many as 800,000 homes, so now it could easily be closer to, well, a million.

So commonplace have million-pound houses become, that last year – in a market shut down for a couple of months by the global pandemic – as many as 6,000 of them were sold to first-time buyers.

That said, for most people, £1m is still a lot of money – it would take someone on the average salary of £31,461 over 31 years to earn that much, and to borrow it would incur monthly interest payments alone of £2,000.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of people who can afford these properties, especially among those who first bought a couple of decades ago and have been able to take advantage of subsequent price rises.

In fact, such is the demand for some of these properties that many of them, especially those in particularly sought-after locations, seem to fly off the shelves when they come to market.

So, just what can you get for £1m nowadays? The following three properties are all valued at or around that mark, and are all currently for sale.

In the sought-after village of Sicklinghall, Poplar House will leave you with £5,000 change from your million. The detached family home, three-and-a-half miles west of Wetherby, has four bedrooms, two bathrooms, open-plan kitchen, dining and sitting room, utility room and snug. Outside, there’s a lawned garden with far-reaching views over fields, patio area, detached double garage and large gravelled frontage.

In Harrogate, 52 Wetherby Road hits the million-pound market on the button. It has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a study (or extra bedroom), entrance hall, large kitchen, utility room and three reception rooms. Set in south-west-facing leafy gardens with pergola and garden shed, it also has a gravel drive, double garage and electric gates.

Finally, just across town, Pinewood North comes in at just over the million mark. The semi-detached house on the Duchy Estate has six bedrooms, three bath- or shower-rooms, reception hall, kitchen, boot room and two reception rooms. There’s even more on the lower ground floor, with an office/garden room, laundry room, store rooms and single garage. Outside, there are gardens and plenty of off-street parking.