Sales of million-pound properties across Britain in 2004 were 36% higher than in 2003, according to research from the Halifax bank.

Over the last ten years the number of sales valued at £1 million and above has risen 19-fold from 228 in 1995 to 4,331 in 2004. There are now 47,500 properties in Britain valued at least £1 million, estimates the bank, while it predicts that 29,150 of these properties are located in London.

Irrespective of the growth of expensive properties outside London and the South East, one in three of all million pound plus property sales nationally in 2004 were in just two London boroughs: Kensington & Chelsea (825 sales) and the City of Westminster (488 sales). These two areas have consistently topped the £1m plus sales table by a wide margin.