Tooting is a likeable, well-connected corner of South London with an asking price that does its best to talk you out of it. The typical home sells for about £600,000, and most of the sales are flats. About half the households rent. There's a park round almost every corner, and the money is the hard part.
In the Land Registry's twelve months to May 2026, Tooting recorded 625 sales at a median of £600,000. What you buy matters more than which street it's on. The 361 flats went for a median of £460,000 and the 238 terraced houses for about £800,000. The 22 semi-detached houses went for about £818,000. Four detached houses sold, at a median of £1,538,500, and in Tooting a detached house is closer to a sighting than a market. Most homes are in council tax Band C, and only about 13% sit in the two cheapest bands.
Across the whole of Wandsworth, typical private rent was about £2,600 a month in April 2026, up about 4% on a year earlier. That figure is a borough-wide average, and with roughly half of Tooting's households renting, it's the number most of the neighbours actually live with.
The housing is mostly old and mostly flats. On the council tax valuation list, about 59% of Tooting's homes are flats, 34% are terraced houses, 5% are semi-detached and under 1% are detached. About 68% were built before 1930. On energy certificates, about 54% of rated homes reach band C or better and about 9% are rated E or worse. About 76% of households heat with mains gas and about 10% rely on electric-only heating. Most of this housing was built for coal fires, and it's now expected to perform like a new build.
Tooting has 65 listed buildings: one at Grade I and 64 at Grade II. There are 12 conservation areas in and around it, including the Heaver Estate, Nightingale Lane, Culverden Road and Mellison Road. In those streets, changing windows, doors or frontages means going through the council, and the answer is often a polite version of no. Buy on the Heaver Estate and, in spirit, the front of your house belongs to everyone who walks past it.
The Metropolitan Police recorded a crime rate of about 102 per 1,000 residents in Tooting in the year to May 2026. That's about 2% below the Wandsworth average, so the area is about as safe as the borough around it. Anti-social behaviour makes up about 20% of recorded incidents, against 16% nationally, and violence and sexual offences about 29%, against 35%. On those numbers Tooting is no more dangerous than its borough, though it does report its neighbours to the police a bit more often than the rest of the country.
The Northern line runs under the High Street, and Tooting railway station has direct trains south to Sutton through Wimbledon and north to Farringdon, St Pancras and Luton. There are 168 bus stops, each with about 440 departures on an average weekday and around 24 an hour at the peak. Gigabit broadband reaches about 93% of premises. At the 2021 census about 54% of working residents mostly worked from home and about half of households had no car. With that many buses, going without a car here is a sensible choice and not much of a sacrifice.
On flood risk, about 19% of Tooting's postcodes are rated high on at least one flood indicator, and surface water counts. In the Environment Agency's river-and-sea flood zones, about 4% of postcodes are in Zone 3 and 3% in Zone 2. That rises to about 21% when the agency adds its climate-change allowance. The main worry is rain with nowhere to drain, and the river maps don't show much of it.
About 45% of households own their home and the median age is 33. The Office for National Statistics models gross household income at about £83,000 for the financial year to March 2023. That makes Tooting young and well paid, and most of it is still paying someone else's mortgage.
On average, the nearest green space is about 160 metres from the front door, with about 23 green spaces within a kilometre and water about 490 metres away. Tooting Bec Common is the big one, and on the Furzedown side Tooting Bec Lido is where locals go to swim in cold water and feel good about it. Furzedown itself, between the commons and Streatham, is mostly residential streets that use the common as a back garden.
Tooting Bec takes its name from the Abbey of Bec in Normandy, which held the manor when Domesday was compiled in 1086. Tooting Graveney is named after the De Gravenel family. More recent residents include the comedians Stephen K Amos and Milton Jones, the actor George Cole, the footballer Darren Bent, and Jeremy Bulloch, who played Boba Fett in the early Star Wars films. Given what a terraced house costs now, a bounty hunter fits the area better every year.
Tooting works for young renters and dual-income couples who want the Northern line, buses every few minutes and a common within a short walk, and who will put up with a flat to get them. It works less well for anyone who needs a house with space to spread out on a normal budget. Buyers who want the same Edwardian streets with a bit less going on will find Balham one stop up the line. Those who want more room for the money and can live without a tube station on the doorstep will find that Streatham does exactly what it says on the tin.
Price is where Tooting struggles. About £460,000 for a typical flat buys you the commons, the lido and the Northern line, but not much floor space, and a family terrace is close to £800,000. Tooting is a decent place to live, but it's priced like a great one.