Welcome to the place where the <u>average</u> house price is £725,00

With an average house selling for an astonishing £725,000, it is the undisputed champion of the property premiership.

For the fourth consecutive year, Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire has been named the most expensive place in Britain to buy a home.

Three years ago the average price in the town, population 7,300,was £460,000.

But property values soared nearly 60 per cent thanks to Gerrards Cross's popularity with commuters, who can travel quickly into London or to Heathrow. The £725,000 figure is almost four times the national average property price of £187,000.

The upmarket estate agent Knight Frank is currently advertising a five-bedroomed home for £1.2million.

Despite being sandwiched between the M40 and the M25, the town is 'a very desirable place to live', according to the parish council website.

The former Poet Laureate, Sir John Betjeman, used to teach in a school in Gerrards Cross, named after a crossroads on the old London to Oxford road.

It is easy to understand why families flock to live in the town, which has a large common, created by a fire in 1921, and good grammar schools.

Gerrards Cross comes higher in the league than the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea because it is full of detached houses, while the larger number of flats in the capital lowers the average price.

According to Britain's biggest mortgage lender, the Halifax, 49 of the 50 most expensive towns are in London and the South East. The only one outside is Ilkley, West Yorkshire, with an average price of £300,600, because it appeals to commuters who work in Leeds and Bradford.

More than a decade of house price inflation means one in three towns now has an average price of £200,000 or more. If you have less than £100,000 to spend on a home, only one of the 516 post towns investigated by the Halifax still has an average price in five figures. The typical house in Lochgelly, Fife, costs £96,925.

The Halifax's top ten hotspots are:

Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, £724,594; Kensington and Chelsea, West London, £695,874; Westminster, Central London, £530,262; Weybridge, Surrey, £526,443; Sevenoaks, Kent, £519,505; Camden, North London, £485,447; Amersham, Buckinghamshire, £485,055; Ascot, Windsor & Maidenhead, Berkshire, £481,075; Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, £477,531; Hammersmith and Fulham, West London, £476,222.