The Emerging London Boroughs becoming New Property Hotspots

The telltale sign that you’ve done very well for yourself in London has long been ownership of a detached family house with a big garden in one of the city’s sought-after ‘villages’. Think Hampstead, Dulwich, Richmond or a dozen other prime suburban enclaves whose calm, leafy streets, famous parks and desirable schools are staples on the tick-box list of success.

But what about spending millions instead to live in a converted gasholder container in an area that, 10 years ago, you’d have gone well out of your way to avoid at night? Or how about a house atop an old electricity station that has sat derelict for decades?

London’s property status symbols are shifting as old industrial inner-city areas become vibrant new live, work and play neighbourhoods. Decades in the master planning, they are stealthily emerging piece by piece until they suddenly take on a life of their own. And there are some familiar components in each.

There are the eye-catching sports facilities, from the permanent – including rooftop basketball à la Greenwich Peninsula and the Sky Pool that straddles two buildings at Embassy Gardens in Nine Elms – to pop-up padel courts, curling rinks and wood-fired saunas. An indie food and retail scene is also a must. And it helps to have a feature that’s perfect for Insta-influencers, such as the huge bird cage at King’s Cross Station. It’s all perfect fodder to put the place on the map.

“King’s Cross is without doubt London’s coolest new village. It’s the very definition of great placemaking, embracing its industrial past and incredible assets like the canal, and bringing them together with new restaurants and bars, green spaces and art installations,” says Jo Eccles, founder of Eccord buying agency. She recounts a recent Saturday night there with her family, who were thrilled by the pop-up dressing-up cupboard. “Everyone was walking around in the craziest fancy dress outfits. They’ve managed to create a fun and relaxed atmosphere, without being commercial at all,” she comments.

Another key ingredient, of course, is some stand-out trophy properties, and it’s hard to beat the Gasholders penthouses set within the Grade II-listed cast iron gasholder frames at King’s Cross – the last, priced £7.4m, has just gone under offer. Eccles recently acquired one for a 20-something client in the music industry. “For her, nowhere else in London could offer such a unique property combined with such an eclectic local vibe. For anyone in their 20s, 30s and 40s, it’s the place to be.”

But while these areas are often swarming with Gen Z renters, probably in tech, finance or in debt to the Bank of Mum and Dad, it’s often people of their parents’ age who want – and can afford – to buy the most iconic properties in these schemes. One Gasholder buyer, in his early 60s, bought his weekday pied-à-terre penthouse in shell and core form so he could internally design it entirely to his own taste and spec.

Another couple – British expats in Asia – were contemplating moving into a listed historic building in Richmond with views over bucolic meadows depicted by painter J.M.W. Turner. But Emma Fletcher-Brewer, Knight Frank’s head of Central London Commercial Agents, had a gut feeling from the client’s “cool glasses and slightly edgy look” that Tapestry, a canal-front building near Coal Drops Yard, the new destination dining and retail district in King’s Cross, would suit them better. She was right; they saw it and immediately bought a townhouse.

All over the city, super-prime developers mention the high number of 50+ buyers who are ditching big houses in the London ’burbs or surrounding Shires to live it up in vibey LDN instead.

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay and his wife Tania – despite owning a family home in Wandsworth – are regularly spotted at their much trendier new apartment in Battersea Power Station. The vast construction’s four moribund chimneys had earnt it the nickname “the dead dog”, until the 42-acre river-site location saw a £9bn overhaul that has turned the historic building into one of the trendiest places to live in London.

“Many buyers who have made their money in the North and Midlands purchased £2m- £3m apartments at the power station as an investment and have ended up using the properties themselves,” says Fletcher-Brewer, who is marketing one of the huge Sky Villas on the roof of Battersea Power Station for £8.5m.

‘Meanwhile use’ attractions in these schemes, designed to get people to visit in the early days of development, help sell the place to “more mature buyers”, says Fletcher-Brewer. “They are often coming from lovely country houses and embracing what these cool, urban neighbourhoods have to offer.”

For investors of all ages, these inner-city hubs are “appealing to those who seek an alternative to the mainstream,” comments Mark Breffit, senior advisor at Hamptons Private Office. “They offer an edgy vibe that was once the hallmark of Shoreditch, combined with the convenience of having everything on your doorstep. And they offer apartments with buckets of character that set themselves apart from bland new builds.” It’s all making traditional hotspots such as Mayfair and Belgravia “appear lacking in atmosphere”, Breffit adds.

These new neighbourhoods make you feel part of a global likeminded club too. If you’re a well-travelled buyer drawn to Hudson Yards in Manhattan or South Bank in Melbourne, you will probably like Bankside Yards in London’s Blackfriars – its first residential tower, Opus, launches in 2025 and will include apartments costing several million pounds.

Set on a riverside spot on the South Bank that has, until now, lacked identity, this is the sort of “hyper mixed-use scheme”, says Fletcher-Brewer, that modern London excels at. Along with its residences, Bankside Yards will offer independent retail stores and restaurants under its historic railway arches, high-tech offices, build-to-rent blocks and a Mandarin Oriental hotel.

“This is the type of trendy new product that really gets buyers excited,” she says. “Much of the new build coming through is on the waterfront because we know how that influences people’s mood and mental health.”

Nowhere has more urban grit and grunge DNA than Camden Town, forever synonymous with its music scene and long-time resident Amy Winehouse. But change is taking place. Alongside its famous market, which celebrates its 50th birthday this year, the eight-acre Camden Goods Yard scheme will include 644 new homes (Manhattan Suites start at £725,000), office space and an urban rooftop farm-to-fork restaurant with a chilli farm.

Camden’s overhaul is cleaning up its old post-industrial, rock ’n’ roll image. The music venue, KOKO, is now an ultra-cool members’ club called The House of KOKO. It’s also adding some “seriously smart, upmarket new residential developments, in buildings with porters, leisure facilities and more,” says Giles Elliott at The Buying Solution. And that’s attracting a different type of person to the area – “in media, finance, law and tech,” he adds – and closing the price gap with neighbouring, super-prime Primrose Hill.

“Camden has always been about 25 per cent cheaper, but as its popularity increases, that gap is now about 10-15 per cent,” says Elliott. “Primrose Hill parents are buying in Camden for their children. The next generation feels it has that ‘cool’ credibility, plus it’s within easy access of great parks, waterways and transport links – including being walkable to Eurostar.”

In years to come, they may crave that big house in the sticks. But there’s a whole new aspirational way of living in London that offers trophy properties of a far more idiosyncratic sort – and a ready-made, immersive lifestyle that suburbia can never offer.