£100,000 buys you...

Studio flats are popular with firsttime buyers as on a salary of £25,000 they are affordable if they cost less than £100,000. Thanks to the wonders of Ikea and the popularity of the most glamorous studio resident, Sex and The City's Carrie Bradshaw, studios are trading in their sad student image in favour of something far funkier. The New York effect is key - Manhattan's spacestarved residents have been folding themselves and their possessions into tiny living areas for decades without compromising on style.

London studios are often sited in blocks with security, a community feel and some attractive added extras. Having access to a swimming pool or gardens goes a long way towards mitigating the lack of space. But to find gems like these for less than £100,000, you have to look south of the river.

Brixton's Tudor Close offers what is probably London's best example of studios with charm. Set well back from Brixton Hill, and a short bus ride from the Tube, the gated mock-Tudor block is built around a swimming pool and fountain and has an air of quiet serenity.

It was built in the late 1920s and was heavily influenced by the Arts & Crafts movement, which encouraged the idea of social well-being through communal living.

"I've never come across such a friendly place," says Louise Waring, a first-time buyer who moved in last November. There are a few older residents (including a chirpy 93-year-old man who has lived there for 40 years), but owners are mainly young professionals. The 103 studios all have slightly different dimensions, but most have a lounge/bedroom of around 16ft by 11ft. Kitchens are galley-style, but many of the bathrooms are the size you would expect in a larger flat. Service charges, at £1,300, are on the hefty side, but this does include heating and water, as well as the upkeep of the pool and gardens and the services of a porter.

Thompson Vales (020 8677

6600) is marketing two studios in Tudor Close, both with a 97-year lease, at £95,000.

Tudor Close is not the only South London studio option if you are keen on swimming. Lynx (020 8769 9999) has a ground-floor studio flat for £99,950 on Aldrington Road that is across the road from Tooting Bec Lido and Common.

The three-storey block has a service charge of £150 a year. The studio has a relatively spacious feel, with a kitchen that you could squeeze a table into. A door from the lounge/bedroom leads straight out to communal gardens.

It is a 10-minute walk from Streatham Station, which has services to Farringdon, King's Cross and London Bridge, or a quick bus ride to Tooting Bec Tube.

Further north and you hit Balham, once sarcastically damned by Peter Cook as "the gateway to the South". Recently, the area has inherited some of Brixton's urban cool, thanks to Soho House creator Nick Jones' new Balham Kitchen & Bar on Bedford Hill.

Within crawling distance of this bar is Du Cane Court. If you were inspired by the V&A's recent Art Deco exhibition, this is the place to live. The block's design is a classic of the genre, with vast pillars in its reception. Home to 676 flats (including 225 studios), the block is thought to be the largest privately-owned block in Europe, and was used to house part of the civil service during the war. One urban myth has it that Hitler had earmarked it as his HQ if his invasion was successful.