"City slickers flock to the suburbs in search of space” – headlines like this from the Halifax building society sum up the findings of current research by most sides of the property industry.

The steady stream of Londoners moving to the home counties has been picking up pace for 18 months, say estate agents specialising in the middle to top end of the market.

Would-be ex-pat Londoners are now the largest group of homebuyers in Beaconsfield by some margin, reports Hamptons head of research Aneisha Beveridge.

Those with a house for sale in the town 18 minutes by rail from Marylebone can almost name their price.

The growth of property values has been outpacing London for the last three years.

House prices in the town surrounded by green fields and not far from the River Thames have been rising faster than anywhere else in the south east for more than a decade.

Average cost of a home in the local HP9 postcode is now £1.2 million.

So far this year the end result for house sellers has been a deal concluded for an average of 97.3 per cent of their initial asking price, the best pay off since 2014.

Aneisha Beveridge told the BFP on Tuesday: “If Beaconsfield was the capital’s 34th borough, it would be the third most expensive.

“Average prices passed the £1m mark in 2015.

"But unlike London’s prime markets, prices in Beaconsfield have continued on an upward trajectory.

“Traditionally many buyers would have headed straight for the town’s golden triangle – the leafy roads immediately to the south west of the station, lined by some of the town’s most aspirational homes.

“However in the last 18 months they have become more adventurous, heading deeper into the Old Town [and a slightly longer hike to catch a train] as the prospect of a daily commute into the capital has faded.

“It’s a similar story across the rest of the south east too where sellers are typically pocketing 99.3 per cent of their asking price, the highest figure recorded at any time during the last decade.”

Bucks Free Press: Wedgewood CottageWedgewood Cottage

The agent warns: “High house prices mean that the time to sell in Beaconsfield is above the average for the south east because expensive homes take longer to sell” but she added brightly “the figure of 90 days to find a buyer is still a three year low.”

Pictured is a 1930s house in Penn Street, a pretty hamlet midway between Beaconsfield and Amersham.

It has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, three reception rooms, a double garage and quarter acre garden.

The layout includes an annexe.

Asking price: £1.395m. Agent: Hamptons, Beaconsfield.