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

A total of 4,331 million-pound properties were sold in 2004 compared with 3,188 properties in 2003, following virtually no change between 2002 and 2003.

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. Sales above this landmark in London have increased 15 times over this period from 179 in 1995 to 2,608 in 2004. In 1995 there were only 22 million-pound plus sales outside London and the South East. In 2004 there were 715: a 30-fold increase.

There are now 47,500 properties in Britain valued at least £1 million, estimates the bank, while in London it is estimated the number of seven-figure sales is 29,150.

London accounted for almost two-thirds (60%) of all million-pound property sales in Britain in 2004. Since 1995, however, London's share of all the country's million pound sales has fallen from 79% as the number of sales in this exclusive price bracket has risen dramatically elsewhere across Britain.

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.