Independent on Sunday,  3 September 2006

London property prices are prohibitive for most new buyers—but there are areas where bargains can still be had

By Robert Liebman

Mayfair is indeed magnificent and Chelsea is charming, but the vast majority of first-timer buyers are consigned to the Old Kent Road side of the Monopoly board - the side where flats sell for under £100,000.

The main challenge for the typically cash-strapped first-timer is to find a property and an area that is an acceptable compromise between what you want and what you can really afford. Forget a tube station and great parks and shops and neighbours and low crime and a garden, but in the immenseness that is London you should be able to satisfy one or more of your main priorities.

Brentford Dock is an ex-council riverside estate in Brentford opposite Kew Botanical Gardens in southwest London. Brentford gentrified in one mighty swoop in recent years, with new riverside and canalside luxury flats, hotels and restaurants being built on redundant industrial sites.

Thorough research is essential. The capital is awash with old, new and council-built houses and flats in and near the city centre and in the outer, usually cheaper, suburbs. Conservation areas with attractive Georgian and Victorian houses tend to be pricey, but some are located in pleasant inner-city enclaves and offer reasonably priced properties.

Convenience is no longer defined exclusively by reference to the West End and the City. Nowadays, many people work in Docklands and other remote locations.  Consequently, many previously inconvenient areas in terms of the city centre are now handy for local jobs. And when nothing at all seems affordable, a flat above a shop or ex-council may come to the rescue.

Don’t rule out areas because you have never heard of them. Overshadowed by Crystal Palace Park, Penge has flats priced at less than £100,000 in an area with solid communications and shops, and that gem of a park.

Some appealing enclaves are the poor relation in an otherwise pricey area. Brentford Dock in rapidly gentrifying Brentford is a large pleasant riverside development in West London with flats costing a fraction of the price of the trendy canalside new-builds just down the road. The riverside homes at Chiswick Mall are prohibitively expensive, but flats in the several blocks comprising Chiswick Village are inexpensive by the standards of that popular west London community.

Spring Grove in Hounslow, West London: attractive and affordable.

Central London just south of the Thames contains several small pockets of period properties between Newington and Camberwell. In north London, the huge amorphous sprawl known as Holloway also has conservation areas and other property oases.

Hither Green exemplifies the kind of area whose attractiveness has grown because of change elsewhere. First came Docklands, followed by the extension of the Docklands Light Railway to Lewisham, just down the road. Hither Green is now very convenient for Canary Wharf and offers new luxury flats in a hospital conversion as well as small period terraces. For good measure, it also has good national rail links with the West End. Flats start at just over £100,000.

Several affordable North London areas such as Hackney, Tottenham, and Harringay are curate’s eggs: good in parts, and the best parts – Hoxton, for example – have become as expensive as they are trendy. The worst parts are cheap but not cheerful and are best avoided. In between are areas worth considering.

Winkworth estate agent Elan Silver advises first-timers to “identify areas near an underground station within Zone 3 and where the architecture is mostly Victorian or earlier. The combination of period architecture and underground stations is very appealing. Harringay and Tottenham are good examples of such areas.” Studio flats start at about £90,000, and one-bedders at about £110,000.

For house buyers, Silver recommends the Harringay Ladder, so named for the grid arrangement of its roads: “Two-bed conversion garden flats are particularly popular. They typically sell for around £250,000. In Finsbury Park nearby, the same price buys a one-bedroom flat or a small two-bed flat with no garden.” If you pay £250,000 for a house or flat, add another £2,500 – one per cent – for stamp duty.

If you are prepared to pay around £150,000 for a flat, you might want to consider buying a house for a similar price. For many people, a small freehold house is more appealing than a slightly larger flat. One-bed “starter” homes – small, modern no-frill houses, usually with patio rear gardens - are available throughout the capital’s outer suburbs. Starting prices are usually between £125,000 and £175,000.

As a freehold house owner rather than a leaseholder, you don’t pay service charges or ground rent, although you alone are responsible for repairs and maintenance of the entire property. If the walls are solid (a big if), you don’t have noise problems to the side, and with no neighbours above or below, you don’t have to contend with heavy-footers above, or the neighbour below complaining about your heavy feet.

Generally, the further from central London, the cheaper it gets. If you are property hunting around the city limits, consider going just beyond it. For example, studios and one-bed flats cost between £100,000 and £125,000 in Wimbledon and its popular neighbours to the east, Tooting and Streatham. In Mitcham to the south, starting prices drop by £10,000 or more.

But as you drift south within Mitcham itself, the London post codes (SW19 and SW16) end and CR4 begins. The boundary is invisible but significant: a flat with a Croydon post code can be thousands of pounds cheaper than one with a London post code just yards away.

Foxtons, Chiswick 020 8996 6002; Winkworth, Harringay, 020 8800 5151.

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