While millions of people cannot afford to step onto the property ladder at all, the number of homes worth £1m or more has reached almost 400,000.
The figure has “more than doubled” in the past 10 years, fuelled largely by price rises in London and the home counties, according to the estate agency Savills.
The research comes amid predictions that Britain could be heading for another property recession after figures from the Nationwide building society showed the longest sustained fall in house prices since the peak of the 2008-9 financial crisis.
Many of the “property millionaires” are people who would consider themselves “brick-rich but cash-poor” because their home has ballooned in value but they are not awash with disposable cash.
Lucian Cook, director of residential research at Savills, said: “Historically, that £1m mark put you in an elite group. It isn’t exactly run-of-the-mill today but it’s certainly not the benchmark it was 10 years ago.
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“Where once you’d think it would have to be a large rectory or farmhouse commanding that price tag if it were outside London, it can now be something ordinary, such as a terraced house.”
Savills’ research shows there were about 176,000 homes worth £1m or more in 2006, compared with 394,000 last year, a rise of 124%. The properties are worth a total of £883bn.
One winner is the rower Ben Hunt-Davis, 45, who won a gold medal at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. He spent £700,000 on a five-bedroom flat in a mansion block in Barnes, southwest London, in 2005.
Hunt-Davis has just put the property on the market for £1.65m.