Would you want to live above the shop? In a buyers' market, aspiring homeowners can spurn apartments above commercial premises, citing as objections the noise and crowding of high street locations and concerns about the depressing effect on values should there be any future change of use. Such properties look doubly vulnerable just now because buy-to-let investors - who have found that young renters prefer the central locations and don't mind the lack of garden - are holding back from further investment as prices fall and credit dries up.

Yet, since the last market downturn, the regeneration of city centres has turned many urban areas from grimy no-go zones to hotspots busy with boutiques and cosmopolitan eateries. Can homes above the shop keep their value better than in previous slowdowns? A crop of properties new to market, and in fairly swanky areas, will show whether nervous buyers have lost their hesitation over such homes.

Blenheim Crescent is around the corner from Portobello Road in Notting Hill, and is a similarly close-packed promenade of shops and boutiques. It is a far cry from the grand stucco mansions that have become irresistible to City grandees and visiting celebrities such as Reese Witherspoon but is yards from local nightspots such as the Electric as well as from Ladbroke Grove Tube.

The street is also home to the Travel Bookshop, which despite its diminutive appearance has become one of the most visited shops in the capital since it acted as the model for Hugh Grant's retail venture in Notting Hill. The film may have been shot elsewhere, but the appeal of visiting a location that feels somehow familiar is undiminished for the crowds of tourists (and book lovers) that visit daily. Upstairs the apartment owned by the former owner-founder of the bookshop and now publisher, Sarah Anderson, pictured, is a last corner of untouched bohemianism, with a light-filled study, large sash windows and rooms lined with books. The flat is for sale through Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward (020-7724 1222) for £899,950 - not insignificant for a one-bedroom flat in an area where the average apartment price is £662,667, according to Home.co.uk. However, it is a property with potential for the creation of a second bedroom if the new owner is willing to sacrifice the expansive bathroom. Mai Pexton, of Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward, anticipates no problem selling it despite the subdued market. She says: “Properties like this one only come on to the market once in a blue moon and its celebrity and rarity will certainly be a factor in the sale.”

For those who would prefer a rather more discreet address - and one free of gaggles of backpackers - the upmarket agent Knight Frank is selling a lavish apartment on Mount Street in Mayfair. This spacious leasehold apartment is above the awnings of the Marc Jacobs boutique in a stately red-brick building. It has striking bay windows and a pleasingly unchallenging decor, and is on the market for £2.5 million (020-7499 1012).

Lucian Cook, a director of research at Savills, says: “The extent to which such apartments are affected in the downturn is likely to be directly linked to the nature of the retail use below and around it. There will be a huge difference between being located above a high-class florist surrounded by boutiques which add to the exclusivity of an area, and being located above a restaurant, newsagent or bookies.”

And the fate of new flats above the Prince of Wales's Highgrove store - a kind of very fancy farm shop - in the Counting House development in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, bodes well. More than half the apartments have sold only two months after launch, despite prices starting at £160,000, in an area where the average flat price is £125,000. Jo Nettleton, a director of the developor Edward Blake (01666 505105), said: “We have been bucking the trend in the property market, partly due to our commercial occupiers but also because the flats are spacious, individual and beautifully presented.”

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