Where To Buy A First home in 2019

With a four-day break coming up, and two May bank holidays hot on its heels, this is the ideal time to take your house hunt off the laptop and on to the streets. A travelcard and an open mind are all first-time buyers need to explore some of the best developments and locations in and around the capital.

Where should you look for your first home in or near the capital?

East London: best for new builds

Just south of Hackney Wick, Fish Island Village is a new waterfront community beside the Hertford Union Canal in a great location with the increasingly impressive Olympic Park on one side and Victoria Park on the other.

The six-acre scheme, which includes a collaboration between housing association Peabody and housebuilder Hill, has homes, plus studios for artists, designers and start-ups.

There are social spaces, too, and it’s walking distance to both Stratford and Hackney Wick stations.

One-bedroom flats start from £522,500 and two-bedroom flats from £592,000.

For more bang for your buck, Lime Quarter in Bromley-by-Bow is also in E3, close to Devons Road DLR station.

It’s in a reasonably authentic slice of the East End, where boozers co-exist with gastropubs, Roman Road Market is the place to buy your fruit and veg, and there are on-site workspaces for home workers. Prices start from £427,500.

Tooting: for period homes in south London

Buyers priced out of Balham, Brixton, or Battersea should consider their low-profile neighbour Tooting, where a budget of £400,000 will stretch to a two-bedroom period flat.

Comparative affordability aside, Tooting is showing all the signs of becoming a really great place to live as new cafés, bars and restaurants open up, replacing takeaways and grimy boozers, led by Graveney and Meadow with its tapas menu and great garden.

Tooting Arts Club adds a bit of culture, while fans of pedal power can use a Cycle Superhighway to reach the city. Tooting station is in Zone 3 with services to Waterloo and Blackfriars in around half an hour.

John-Paul Burrough of Marsh & Parsons says Tooting Bec Common, with its lido and weekly park runs, is a massive selling point for the area.

Canary Wharf: for buyers who want to cut the commute

According to a new report 70 per cent of people who live in cities would feel happier with their lives if they lived closer to work, and almost half of all Londoners would consider moving nearer to the office – anything to avoid the tube scrum in the morning.

For those who work in Canary Wharf a home at Wood Wharf, a multi-million pound regeneration project by the Canary Wharf Group.

Its first homes, at One Park Drive, are on sale now and residents will get a private fitness centre, a club, and a sky terrace as part of the deal.

Prices start from £825,000 for a one bedroom flat.