Picking where you’re going to live in London is no easy task. Whether you’re moving to the city for the first time to study or pursue your career, or if you’ve lived there for years and are moving from one flatshare to another, picking your new home is difficult. And rightly so, as the area surrounding your home will define such a lot of your life for as long as you live there.
Unfortunately, despite the title, there is no one ‘best place to live’ in London. The best place for you to live depends on an untold number of factors. It might be most important to you to live close to friends, which will dictate your choice for you. If you have an ideal commute time you wish to aim for, many housing websites include tools that can show you the travel time between your workplace and areas you are looking to live in that will help narrow down your search. Budget is another key factor: Kensington may be an ideal place for you to live but the average rent is one of the highest in London.
It’s also worth considering more esoteric factors: if you like to relax outdoors at the weekend, consider the availability of local green space: you might find a great deal on a modern flat in Canary Wharf that’s convenient for work but if you need to sit under a tree with a book to feel properly relaxed, you will find the area oppressive in the extreme.
The best place to live in London depends on you, but we do have a suggestion: Tooting.
Located in South-West London, it’s directly on the Northern Line, which avoids South London’s transport problem (with only 29 tube stations located south of the river). This should get you into central London within half an hour, which makes for a manageable commute.
Depending on your budget you choose from a range of houses, either around gentrified Tooting Broadway or more budget options in Tooting Bec. And while Tooting Bec is gentrifying, the area still has its own character so it doesn’t feel like living in featureless suburbia. It’s in the middle of a triangle of green space formed by Wandsworth, Tooting and Clapham commons so whether you’re interval training or simply walking you have wide open space to do it in.
If you’re looking at moving house, find a London storage facility for your bulkier items, and get down to Tooting to look at flats!