Property: The Low-Down

Prices: A three-bedroom loft in a converted warehouse overlooking the canal and Victoria Park is available at pounds 145,000 at Keatons estate agents. Similar money can buy a three-bedroom freehold house (pounds 140,000), while an additional pounds 35,000 buys a two-bedroom flat occupying the upper two storeys of a Victorian house. In mid-March, Copthorn is releasing the third phase of Victoria Place at New Kingshold. Estate agents Sovereign will have price and other information on the two-, three-, and four-bedroom houses and two-bedroom flats.

Transport: The overall area is served by the Underground (Bethnal Green and Mile End Central Line stations are in zone two) or the overground (Cambridge Heath, Bethnal Green, Homerton and Hackney Wick stations). The motorway adjacent to Cadogan Terrace is the A102(M) for Blackwall Tunnel.

Shopping and dining: Well Street has a supermarket and popular outdoor market, and Victoria Park Village has trendy boutiques and restaurants. Mare Street, Hackney, is a bustling high street.

The park: Victoria Park has a running track and changing rooms, tennis courts, fishing, pitches for cricket, hockey football and softball, playgrounds, a deer enclosure, an Old English Garden and a One O'Clock Club. The park's interesting history is related in the handsome park brochure (available on 0171-364 4951 from Crown Estates; Internet address: http://www.crownestate.co.uk): "Property owned by the sovereign of the United Kingdom `in right of the Crown' with origins dating back almost 1,000 years." The park properties were purchased mainly between 1842 and 1845 and include 611 residences, public houses and other commercial premises.

Council tax: Hackney charges more than Tower Hamlets; respective charges are pounds 526 and pounds 439 for Band A and pounds 1,579 and pounds 1,318 for Band H.

Estate agents: Keatons: 0181-981 7788; Sovereign House: 0181-985 5800.