Spencer Park

Spencer Park's streets are dense with converted terraces and mansion blocks, the kind of place where nearly every other doorway has a buzzer panel with six names on it. Flats dominate the sales here, not houses, and the crowd that fills the pavements skews young — early thirties is the median age, younger than London as a whole, and the mix of independent schools, church halls and delis suggests people who've chosen density over garden space.

For commuting, you're looking at Wandsworth Town for the mainline into the city, with Clapham Junction also within reach for the wider network — useful if your work doesn't sit neatly on one line. Schools are a genuine strength: ARK John Archer Primary Academy and the Anglo Portuguese School of London both carry Good ratings, and the area's overall schools grade is among the best you'll find, well above the national average. Housing tells a more complicated story. The market here is almost entirely leasehold flats — 209 leasehold sales against just 48 freehold in the recent sample — so a For Sale board on this street is overwhelmingly advertising a flat with a service charge and a lease length to check, not a house with a garden gate. At a median of £614,400, prices sit below the Wandsworth borough figure, about 7% cheaper than the borough as a whole, though still well above the national median. That affordability strain shows up directly in the numbers: the area's affordability grade is weak even though the housing stock itself scores well, and rents north of £2,600 a month will sting anyone coming from outside London.