South Norwood is mainly people in their thirties, on decent incomes, and more of them rent than own. Just under half own their home. The typical resident is in their late thirties. Lone parents outnumber couples bringing up children. On these streets, the money is real but it is spread unevenly.
According to the 2021 Census, the source for every population figure here, about 48% of South Norwood's households own their home. About 31% rent privately and about 20% rent from the council or a housing association. Front doors split roughly evenly between mortgages and landlords, and a seller on one side of a terrace may well be selling to a buy-to-let investor next door.
The median resident is 37, and about 33% of people are between 25 and 44. That is a district of people in their working and child-rearing years, with plenty of them likely to be commuting out on the morning trains.
The Office for National Statistics models median household income across South Norwood at about £69,000 a year before tax, in the financial year to March 2023. That is a household figure, often made up of two earners, and before tax and rent it does not stretch as far as it sounds. It is comfortable money for a couple in a flat, and it does not go far when the mortgage is on a terrace and there is one income.
Households are a mixed bunch. About 32% are one person living alone, and about 8% of all households are a single pensioner living alone, as part of that same group. About 17% are couples with dependent children, and about 19% are lone parents, so the two-parent family with children is the smaller group. The family in the property-ad photographs, two parents in the garden, is a minority household here.
About 43% of residents aged 16 and over have a degree-level qualification, and about 16% have none at all. Full-time students make up about 3% of the population. That makes South Norwood a district of graduates and non-graduates in fairly similar numbers, and with very few students.
About 85% of residents described their health as good or very good in 2021. Across the London Borough of Croydon, the rate of deaths from preventable causes is similar to England's, and so is the share of adults who smoke. Those are borough-wide figures with nothing specific about South Norwood behind them.
On the social measures used here, South Norwood comes in below average, and the reason is the mix: more renting than owning, plenty of single-income households, and a professional income that covers less ground once the rent is paid.