Notting Hill’s grandeur (and a touch of grunge) keeps homebuyers coming

Looking to buy her first home in London after a 12-year stint in Sydney, Alexandra Hirst chose Notting Hill last year. The theatre producer bought a two-bedroom flat near Portobello Market, the 160-year-old antiques and vintage street market in west London. 

“As a 35-year-old interested in the range of bars and restaurants, I also considered Chelsea, South Kensington and Battersea. But Notting Hill is just cool, still an eclectic mix of new and old families: it’s not all Daylesford,” she says of the organic store found in upmarket areas.

It was a “horrific” time to get a mortgage, she says, referring to the succession of interest rate rises between late 2021 and 2023. “But an inheritance helped, and I think it was a good time to buy.”

In a pattern repeated across London, the market in Notting Hill — a fashionable neighbourhood that attracts wealthy buyers seeking a bit more edge than other classically upscale areas — was subdued during 2023 but picked up in January, according to estate agents. 

“New buyers in private equity with decent bonuses are fed up with treading water for the past year and want to press on with the election looming,” says Miles Meacock of the agent Strutt & Parker. With so many cash buyers, the area is less affected than less prime neighbourhoods by the higher rates, says Mark Redfern of Savills Notting Hill, who had 15 viewings on a five-bedroom house at £5.5mn in February.

The area’s stock of generously proportioned town houses on garden squares, walkable from a handful of independent schools, helped its average price outpace prime central London during the pandemic-era race for space. 

Property prices increased by 7.5 per cent between March 2020 and the end of 2023, according to Savills prime London index, with central London averaging 0.8 per cent during that period. Compared with the 2017-19 average, in 2023 the price per sq ft was up 6.7 per cent in Notting Hill, and up just 0.5 per cent across central London, according to LonRes, which tracks the prime London market. 

Transaction volumes remain quite low, as across prime central London, with some international buyers holding off until they know what type of government there will be within the year, says Liam Monaghan of London Central Portfolio, a buying agent. “But in Notting Hill we’ve seen the biggest rise [compared with other parts of London] in Americans who are increasingly looking to spend longer periods in the UK.”

We love the village feel, our communal garden, now a mix of longtime families with Australians, Americans. We are staying put

One is an entrepreneur from Atlanta with a £2mn budget seeking a two-bedroom flat with outside space; another is a New York-based family office looking for a house on the Holland Park borders, for £20mn. 

The box office hit Notting Hill put the area’s pastel-coloured Georgian houses and communal gardens on a wider radar 25 years ago, and living on such a square brings kudos, says Will Watson of agent The Buying Solution, though he adds that “Americans quite like the grunginess of Notting Hill.” Some European buyers, such as a recent Swiss client, are more likely to be deterred by the area’s annual summer carnival, he adds, when some homeowners board up properties for protection or leave town for the long weekend.

On the area’s most prestigious addresses, even properties in need of renovation have been selling, despite the hikes in building costs, says Meacock.

On Lansdowne Road, a five-bedroom house sold last August for £22.5mn, and in October a four-bedroom property sold for just under its £6.7mn guide price to a European buyer in finance. Also in autumn, a three- bedroom property on Chepstow Place needing modernisation attracted multiple offers so that it went for significantly more than its asking price of £5.75mn. The area’s other marquee addresses include Chepstow Villas, Clarendon Road and Kensington Park Road. A budget of £6mn-£8mn could buy a turnkey, 3,500 sq ft house on a garden square.

Many house owners, loath to leave, stay for many years, such as freelance chef Fiona Fosh, who has lived on Lansdowne Road for 15, her husband for 30. The couple, whose adult children have left home, think downsizing from their four-storey, five-bedroom town house would be logical, says Fosh — “But where would we go? We love the village feel, our communal garden, now a mix of longtime families with Australians, Americans. We are staying put.”

Some houses like theirs are rented out for up to £15,000 a week by US film production companies for crew and actors. “Owners let out their homes for three to five months and decamp to their holiday property,” says Lucinda Richardson, head of lettings at Winkworth Notting Hill.

But she says the rentals market is cooling a little as supply increases: properties stuck on the (sales) market are being put up for six- or 12-month rentals instead.

Redfern says there is more available to buy below £5mn, especially apartments. A one-bedroom flat without outside space can cost less than £500,000, but for the sought-after period conversions with high ceilings, it’s typically £750,000 to £1mn.

Flats in Notting Hill have held their value better than those in other prime central London neighbourhoods since the 2015 market peak: in January they were down 4.2 per cent, compared with Kensington (-10.5 per cent) and Chelsea (-12.6 per cent), according to data company Bricks&Logic.

Buyers looking for cheaper homes have been looking at the area’s less polished fringes, says Watson. North of the Westway, merging into Ladbroke Grove, Oxford Gardens and Bassett Road have wide, detached houses. “These were deemed less desirable than core Notting Hill but that is changing,” he says. A seven-bedroom detached house in Oxford Gardens sold for £7.6mn in June. 

The eastern area bordering W2 is also gaining in popularity, thanks to its proximity to Paddington station (and the Elizabeth Line to Heathrow) and the £3bn developments around Queensway, the faded high street of Bayswater. These include 52 luxury properties overlooking Hyde Park at Park Modern, and 139 at The Whiteley, a former department store, with shops, cafés and a Six Senses spa.  

India (who preferred not to disclose her real name) likes the way the area is evolving and bought a large one-bedroom apartment on Westbourne Gardens, after renting in the same street for two years.

“After homes in different parts of London I kept coming back to Notting Hill as it’s the coolest and most authentic place,” says India, who works in luxury marketing. “I’m excited to see Queensway improving, which was a bit of an eyesore. It’s so easy to get out of London on the A40, yet I can be in Mayfair in 12 minutes on an electric bike.”

Despite the influx of wealthy residents, she says the area has retained some of its old spirit, but whether this will endure is a worry for Brandon Cowan who runs @Nottinghill_hoodhub, promoting local businesses. “I am seeing friends getting pushed out by rent increases and long-established cafés being replaced by chain restaurants — like Five Guys — even at this end of Notting Hill,” he says, referring to Ladbroke Grove. 

“I moved from Hampstead for the quirky mix,” he says, echoing Hirst’s stance on the area. “I think that while the [Portobello] market and the carnival are still going, with all the graffiti and the vandalism, it won’t become completely gentrified — well I hope not.”

On the market

Flat, Kensington Park Gardens, £1.9mn

A one-bedroom, first-floor apartment on one of Notting Hill’s grandest streets. The flat, which measures 83 sq metres, has one bathroom, two terraces and access to Ladbroke Square Gardens. The ceiling height in the main reception room is over 3.5 metres. Available with Savills.

Maisonette, Alexander Street, £3mn

A three-bedroom duplex apartment to the east of Notting Hill in W2. Measuring more than 177 sq metres, the renovated period property has three bathrooms, walk-in wardrobes and parquet flooring with underfloor heating. Available through John D Wood.

House, Kildare Terrace, £5.45mn

A five-storey, Victorian end-of-terrace house in the Westbourne Conservation area. Its roughly 3,000 sq ft of living space includes five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a media/gym room, study and utility room. In addition to the garden, there is a balcony and a terrace. For sale with Knight Frank.

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