Heathrow-Canary Wharf link could boost long-term values, says Angela Pertusini

OH TO be an overseas investor! Able to harvest all the economic benefits of owning property in this city with none of the horrific financial penalties (no change left from a fiver for coffee and a slice of cake, £12 to get into most exhibitions, a minimum £40 for dinner with a glass of wine and shared pud) and none of the many, many inconveniences.

And, my word, there will be some inconveniences and some expense in the forthcoming years as both the Olympic building programme and now Crossrail stutter into life.

Yes, Crossrail, the ambitious plan to link Heathrow with Canary Wharf and beyond (more of which later) has finally been greenlighted at a projected cost of £16 billion (€23bn).

It was first mooted in 1990 and will not be finished until 2017 but, hey, property investment, especially in these dark days of bears and bubble-pricking, is a long-term game and think what some unlovely flat snapped up near Paddington - one of the scheme's hubs - could be worth once it was 15 minutes away from the banks and trading floors of the Wharf. More to the point, look at the "and beyond" areas of these central London hubs that will be linked by Crossrail. Stratford will be one - and what with the Olympics, the Eurostar connection and now Crossrail, one can't help suspecting most of the government must have bought up large swathes of E15 some time in the early Noughties - but there are other interesting offerings.

I have banged the drum for Woolwich before because it is relatively cheap - with good reason, some would say - but after years of isolation from the rest of London, is now well on its way to a DLR connection and will be only two stops from the all-important Canary Wharf by Crossrail.

Buy at today's prices and you could even avoid stamp duty as most of its second-hand small flats fall below the £150,000 (€217,000) upper limit for "disadvantaged" areas - and most of SE18 has been designated disadvantaged.

For those of a more squeamish disposition, Ealing will also be on the route and has long been an area of solid growth which is likely to outperform similarly bourgeois neighbourhoods. Slightly further up the line is Acton, more up and coming but still relatively good value compared to neighbouring Shepherd's Bush and Chiswick because of its lack of a tube station.

SCHADENFREUDE alert no 1: the website propertysnake.co.uk has been gathering more and more content over the past few weeks as its sole function is to list properties that have had their prices dropped. Oh the joy of seeing £300k (€433,000) wiped off the value of some undistinguished 1930s suburban nightmare at the wrong end of Balham (and believe me, there are right ends and wrong ends even in my humble area).

Interestingly, although London has the landmark numbers - six-figure drops - it seems to be away from the capital that the reductions are by the highest proportions: 25 per cent and above are not uncommon in the provinces.

Schadenfreude alert no 2: every downturn has its moments of pure, unalloyed joy and there can be few Londoners who did not smile with sheer contentment at the news that the US wing of the Foxtons estate agency had collapsed amid the country's current housing market turmoil. It is impossible to say what sort of impact that this will have on Foxtons in London. It is generally reviled as the widest and most aggressive of all London's agencies and gained added notoriety as the focus of a BBC investigation that appeared to uncover all manner of dubious behaviour and murky ethics.

Quite possibly the failure of its operation in America will matter not a jot to its offices in the UK and its irritating fleet of customised Minis and platoon of unctious brokers will continue to raise hackles across the capital for decades to come. But what is the use of living in London if you lose the ability to dream?