Property

First-time buyer: £250,000
Winkworth’s MD, Dominic Agace, has bad news for first-time buyers who think a price crash will put Hampstead in their reach – it won’t, but he does suggest some areas which may be affordable. ‘Hammersmith is a good bet,’ he says. ‘There are opportunities if you find the right flat and they’re keen to move.’

A quick trawl of the area throws up two good deals. Lawson Rutter has a large, refurbed studio on Crisp Road, W6, close to the river (and the River Café) for £249,950, while for the same price So Suite Properties is listing a one-bed ‘on the borders of Chiswick’ (actually Askew Road in Shepherd’s Bush) that boasts a wet room and all appliances.

Is buying east the answer? Agace says the market is static: ‘In most parts of London 80 per cent of buyers are owner-occupiers, but in Bow and Statford it may be 40 per cent. A lot of properties have been bought by investors who will hold them until the Olympics; few will put them on the market.’ But there are some good buys to be had – Keatons has an attractive two-bed flat in a Victorian house on Bow Road for £250,000. Feature continues

Mid range: £500,000
Half a million will get you into better London postcodes, as long as you’re not planning to swing any cats. John D Wood has a two-bedroom maisonette in a portered but generally charmless block on Chelsea Manor Street for £499,000; Chesterton has a titchy one-bed mews house in W11 for £499,500.

Winkworth’s Dominic Agace suggests throwing your net a bit wider, though: ‘Kensal Rise, Shepherds Bush, Hackney: if you’re looking at a four-year time-scale those are exciting areas of London,’ he says. ‘They’ve got longer-term growth potential because they’ve got the vibrancy of young professionals moving in there.’

Homefinders has a three-storey, four-bedroom house on Hackney’s Cricketfield Road for £499,995, which has just been done up and was recently valued, according to the listing, at £560,000. Further south towards Victoria Park, you’ll have to settle for a three-bedroom flat on Southborough Road, though you do have a shared garden and plenty of space (on sale with Keatons, £519,995).

The big league: £750,000
You may have £750,000 to spend, but it still won’t buy you spacious property in central London. But it’s worth looking in Battersea, where nice three-bed houses have fallen into your range from a high of £820,000 last year according to Winkworth’s figures; Wellingtons has a pretty Victorian three-bed on Eccles Road for £699,950, for instance, which is not only an attractive purchase but unusually gives you scope to add value by extending.

Dominic Agace would look for bargains in west London: ‘Young renting professionals were priced out of places like Clapham when it became a “nappy valley” area, and moved to places like Kensal Rise; those are the vibrant areas with potential now.’ Harris & Co has a three-bed on
All Souls Avenue for £695,000 which needs work but might be a winner if you can hold on to it through the bumpy years ahead.

Perhaps you’d like to invest in the East End – Foxtons has a large Hackney house, with a basement flat ready to rent out, in Queensbridge Road for £750,000. In Shoreditch, the same cash will buy you a canalside two-bed warehouse flat on Kingsland Road, while in Mayfair it would fetch a one-bed in Avery Row (both with Foxtons).