Janedoe

Thank you for posting this. Something solid, useful and original in what is lately too often a sea of delusion and preaching to the choir. Next on the agenda: 1/ the market can stay irrational longer than we can stay solvent and 2/ being right too early is being wrong

I think that's a good call. Though it's not so much a 'fightback' as a scream of anger.

No doubt. Having had their noses bloodied at the Volga, they would naturally think twice about crossing Westbourne Grove. However, it rather makes my point that gentrification and the fear of the working classes we see here need not be mutually exclusive. I would put up with the odd Staffie-on-a-String for the £100 grand a year tax free that Notting Hill pioneers have made over the last 20 years. Of course the right road matters, we're none of us insane, but it certainly doesn't depend on the suburban commuter's fixation with railways. The OP's original mention of Addington Square is a good example. Already north of Camberwell Green and it's congestion, the great bus service along the Walworth Road opens up: The constant stream of big red things can quickly take you over London Bridge (35 or 40), Blackfriars (45), Waterloo (176, 68, 171) or Westminster (12, 148). Call me Plebian if you like (cheers!) but I would much rather use the cheap, regular buses (most of them 24 hour) than the godawful Northern Line to Clapham and points south. and the working working class. This current govt seems to be pushing at the non-working working class as well.

I'm afraid that if your analysis of London property is based on Notting Hill and Islington not being gentrified, then you're far too radical a mind for me That's the point: there are plenty of people with the money or the ability to borrow the money. 1 in 10 of children in London (not just owner-occupier children, all children) is privately educated. Camberwell is actually well placed for private schools: bussable south to the Dulwich schools and north to the City or Westminster schools Maybe this is why you have your unique definition of gentrified. It doesn't mean homogenised wealth. That's the suburbs. Believe it or not there isn't a state of war between rich and poor. Sure for the most part different groups have their own pubs or restaurants or churches or even shops, but many many people (including some well-off ones) actually enjoy that diversity and consider it a good reason to live in central London rather than some rich ghetto in zone 5. One burning bus doth not a riot make Genuinely no offence meant, but I think you might well be happier further afield ...and that's what makes a market

I can see your point, but like your dad (showing my age perhaps) I would take the longer view - despite the doom-mongers here - and say that post-war gentrification of inner London will continue even with hiccups. My point was really that it was ever thus, the homesteader types that went into Notting Hill *did* have their sanity questioned. The stock of agreeable period property from which you can bus to the city or west end *is* limited and not being added to. It will take time. But is is happening - huge (£1.5 billion) redevelopment plans for the Elephant, the low-rise council flats being sold into the private market, great destination restaurant reviews appearing for Camberwell, more estate agents turning up and the rest. It may not be to everyone's taste, it may have setbacks, there may still be muggings, but it is happening. And the Zone 1/2 market in London is some weird thing, the funding and pricing of which seems to have little to do with the rest of Greater London let alone the rest of the country. There may well be blips, it may be on the wrong side of the bravery/insanity curve for many, but there will be some who do very well indeed riding this. Best advice I saw was when everyone is buying, sell, when everyone is selling, buy.

lurker surfacing... I've lived in London all my life, and I have to say the truth is often just not like this. Areas get reputations which aren't always justified and can change quite quickly. In the context of house prices its often those people who look beyond the cliches and easy jokes who do very well. 30 years ago people were saying Islington and Notting Hill were overrun with gangs and you wouldn't survive the walk from the busstop. 20 years ago Battersea was supposedly a no-go slum. 10 years ago you couldn't go to Hoxton or Shoreditch without an SAS guard. And all the time that these wise sages, just as now, stayed renting in the 'burbs, waiting for the right time and place to move, others looked at the beautiful housing stock, the easy transport (bus or cab, not tube) to work or play, and acted. Now its the time for Walworth/Camberwell and places like Bethnal Green (far "edgier" than SE5). If you can't make your own mind up, you could do a lot worse than follow "the pink pound" and the "arty" which is piling into these areas. Just as they did when they were priced out of Belgravia and went Chelsea. And then Parsons Green. No one gets prizes for being wise after the event. As for Addington Square, I know it, have friends there, and would LOVE to live there. Far from being the "wrong" side of Camberwell, its on the "town" side, a good mile closer to work and play than Camberwell Grove meaning a quick bus over any bridge. As for Burgess Park its in the middle of a £6 million re-fit, with improved modern lighting landscaping etc. Expensive? compared to what? its a listed, no-thru-road, Georgian and Regency square on the edge of zone 1. A quarter of the price of Highbury Fields or Niotting Hill and half the distance to Trafalgar Square. Honestly, if I had the money...