Those 15 newly-minted wards that surged past the £1m threshold were largely in London’s commuter belt, where bidding wars broke out amid a race for space, a shortage of properties for sale, and an understanding that the office would once again call its siren song. Surrey and Hertfordshire, in particular, recorded a doubling of million-pound locations, from seven to 14.

Prices of the most expensive country homes rose by 10.6pc in the year to September, according to Knight Frank. Analysis of official figures by Savills found that sales of homes worth between £500,000 and £1m went up by 71pc during the stamp duty holiday of June 2020 to September this year, while £1m-plus transactions soared by 75pc.

So where has all this money come from? Certainly Selling Sunset’s wealthy buyers are not dropping their millions on a semi in Hertfordshire. And the huge boom in high-priced property is not simply down to savings from locked-down buyers skipping coffees and train tickets.

Banks have been falling over themselves to lend – but only if you already have a lot of equity. There has also been an increase in remortgaging by those who plan to use their freed-up cash to spend on more property. Meanwhile, the stamp duty holiday created a once-in-a-generation incentive to move that perversely encouraged would-be buyers to borrow as much as possible in order to buy now and make the saving.

Many brought forward moves by years, just to get in under the wire. In some areas, it triggered house price rises that eclipsed stamp duty holiday savings almost 30 times over.