Time to snap up an ex-council flat in Del Boy's Peckham Nelson Mandela House - Before and after It is 30 years since we first watched David Jason dodge and deal. Since then the property market has changed as much as the way we live. Council properties have been sold off. Some have become highly prized for their architectural value and advanced thinking. Harlech Tower in Acton, which was the location for Nelson Mandela House, has been demolished. Trellick Tower in north Kensington, designed by Erno Goldfinger, is Grade II* listed. And Peckham is being transformed. "We have a new breed of people walking in here now," says Becky Munday of GJM estate agents. They are coming from Hackney, Hampstead Heath, Dalston and Islington because the new overground line now links us to Clapham Junction in one direction and Islington in the other. You can easily get to Shoreditch and Hoxton from here. The line is known as the Ginger Line because it is shaded orange on the map, and it has its own pop-up Ginger Line dining club. Prices have risen sharply in the past year. In October you could buy a three-bedroom house for £500,000 and now it would cost £650,000. It has gone a bit crazy. People know they can get more for their money here," says Becky. Peckham Rye, fringed with gracious Victorian villas, has never been so smart, and Camberwell is the new bohemia. Hunters estate agents advertise Bellenden Road, pictured above, as "home to artists, architects and designers," a place to browse the art galleries, bookshops and bistros, with street bollards by Antony Gormley. Designers and architects always lead the way. Already they are snapping up ex-council flats in central London. Interior designer Jan Reid bought a one-bedroom ex-council flat in Wellesley House, a brick-built, five-storey, early 20th-century block just by Euston station, as a project to restore. Her own home is in Highgate, where she lives with her two children and husband, Robert, head chef at the new Balthazar restaurant. Jan moved internal walls, made two bedrooms and a study, and ripped out corridors and cupboards to make more space. She rewired, re-plumbed and laid floors of gorgeous light grey oak. "The windows were good, so I didn't need to touch them," she says. It is a great area, close to Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia, Covent Garden and Kings Cross. There are lovely communal gardens and friendly people. Estate agents LDG (020 7580 1010) are selling the flat at £467,500. Negotiations over the changes with the local authority were exacting but she is so pleased with the outcome that she is starting her second ex-council project. "Some of these flats are in wonderful areas," she says. For Ed Barker, an architect with Michaelis Boyd Associates, moving into the Rowley Way Estate near Kings Cross has been more like a love affair. The estate was designed by Neave Brown of Camden Council's architectural department in 1968, and Ed studied it at university. He moved in six years ago with his girlfriend Sarah, and they now have two children, Izri, five, and Ivy, two, whose middle name is Neave. "Neave read about the name in the local paper, got in touch and now he is like a second uncle to us," said Ed. The estate is admired for its ziggurat shape, hanging gardens and the subtle ways in which it creates a sense of community. It also starred alongside Jude Law in the film Breaking and Entering. "When you first see it, you might think what an ugly load of concrete, but then you realise how clever it is," says Ed. It is a cool place. North Peckham: a one-bedroom spacious ex-local authority flat with a balcony in a brick-built block in Bath Close, at £169,950 through GJM (020 3318 9123). West Kensington: a top-floor ex-local authority flat with two double bedrooms and balcony with views of Queen's Tennis Club, at £399,950 through Dexters (020 7381 6381). The Ideal Home Show runs from March 15 to April 1 at London's Earls Court.