On Sunday mornings, Café Laville is busy with brunchers enjoying a view of narrow boats moored along a tree-lined waterway. Amsterdam? Bruges? No, this is London’s Little Venice, a neighborhood with picturesque canals and handsome white-fronted townhouses and villas. In a year when homeowners in prime central London have seen the values of their homes ebb 4.6%, according to real-estate firm Savills, this enclave remains very much afloat. Little Venice, and the W9 ZIP Code in which it sits, have seen prices per square foot rise 9.9% in the past year, according to property analyst LonRes. Little Venice is a name reputably coined by Lord Byron, who once lived in the area. It sits amid an extensive canal network dug in Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries. Boats pulled by horses would haul cargo from London’s docks to the rest of the country (as well as delivering goods for export to the British capital). Canals were active commercial highways until the 1960s, when they were overtaken by trucks and trains, but they still remain open for leisure craft and boat trips.
Unlike the wharves and warehouses that flank many of London’s canals, the Regent’s Canal is lined with fine homes. Currently on the market is a six-bedroom, 5,144-square-foot property on Warwick Avenue, priced at £11 million, or about $15.42 million; its future owner will get a private backyard and access to a shared communal garden hidden behind the street, said Nick Crayson, managing director of Crayson estate agents. Neil Barnes, sales manager at Hamptons International, said that on average, homes in the area sell for $1,400 to $1,700 per square foot. Homes overlooking the canal, and particularly on Blomfield Road, increase to around $2,800 per square foot. For perspective, homes in Knightsbridge, the most expensive section of prime central London, can fetch $8,400 to $9,800 per square foot. The neighborhood also has a large stock of two-bedroom apartments that typically sell for around $1.1 million to $1.8 million. Changes in the stamp duty at the end of 2014—an extra tax on the sale of homes above the £2 million mark (about $2.8 million)—have made homes below that price point more marketable. For example, a buyer who pays about $5 million for a typical four-bedroom terraced house in W9 will spend an additional $104,000 because of the stamp duty. “It makes life a whole lot more difficult when you are trying to negotiate a sale because buyers are saying: ‘Why should we take the full hit?’” said James Westendarp, a sales associate at Chestertons estate agents. Neil Barnes, sales manager at Hamptons International, said that British buyers account for about a third of his sales, with overseas purchasers (particularly from Saudi Arabia, China and the Far East) making up the remainder. The area is also popular among North Americans living in London, since it is close to the American School in St. John’s Wood. Tania McNally, director of a public-relations company, bought an apartment in Little Venice in June. “I can just walk out of my door and get a coffee, and there are lots of lovely little shops and cafes, and I can go for a run along the canal or cycle through Regent’s Park to work,” she said. “It is a unique little bubble, but it is also very central. It is quite international, which I like, but people actually live there. It has a really family vibe.” Little Venice is only a small enclave within a wider area. This neighborhood is named Maida Vale, and its large period homes and large apartments are highly sought after.
Gallery: A Tour of London’s Little Venice Scenes from the quaint Little Venice neighborhood in London, with boats moored along the canals and handsome townhomes and villas lining the waterways.
Currently listed for $14 million is a 6,125-square-foot six- to seven-bedroom home with a large backyard with a heated outdoor pool. Maida Vale is also known for its redbrick mansion blocks—Victorian-era apartment buildings with grand frontages and entrance lobbies, and large apartments. Hamptons International is currently listing a 1,413-square-foot, three-bedroom apartment in Cunningham Court for $2.8 million. The area has convenient transportation links, with two London Underground stations. It is also within walking distance of Paddington Station, where in 2018 a new rail line with direct links to the West End of London and the City, the main financial district, is scheduled to launch. This article originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal.