Property Types and Areas

Hello everyone,
  I've been looking endlessly online for flats and houses, trying to work out all the different types. Could anyone give me a brief description on property types? And also, if anyone has advice on favorable areas to live in London, that would be great too! I'm leaning toward Maida Vale, does anyone have insight to this area?
Thanks in advance!
E. Rhiannon

Maida Vale is lovely but very, very expensive and you will find it is mainly purpose built apartments and Victorian and Edwardian houses converted into flats rather than whole houses.  I used to live on the edge where it borders Kilburn and prices are more reasonable. But it's a nice area to live in with excellent transport links, only a few minutes into the West End and to mainline stations for trips out of London.

Thank you, Britwife. Yes, I'm slowly falling in love with the area! And could you tell me what a maisonette is? I'm confused by the different property types. We would like something that comprised all the floors in a building, not just a top floor flat or ground floor, etc.
Thanks again!
E. Rhiannon

I've just responded to this elsewhere!

A maisonette is a flat that has two floors.  To get all the floors in a building you would have to rent/purchase a house - which in Maida Vale would probably be a terraced house.  This means that you have buildings attached on both sides.  A semi-detached house has just one side attached to another house.  Detached house means that it stands on it's own.  The more 'detached' your house is, the more expensive it tends to get for that area.

Maida Vale is very close to where I work in St Johns Wood.  It is a nice area especially if you need to travel on the Bakerloo line to get to work.  There are a few nice pubs, some decent places to eat and it's quite leafy and pretty.  You do have to check where you are living as there are a few council estates that aren't so nice in the area...I would ask about that when you go searching anywhere in London...as you can be in a great block and then the next is not so nice.

Other areas you might want to consider nearby & at similar costs (more or less) would be Hampstead, South or West Hampstead, Belsize Park and Primrose Hill.

This is now in two threads...but a maisonette is a house which has been converted into two flats, one on the ground floor, once on the first floor.

Vicky

This is now in two threads...but a maisonette is a house which has been converted into two flats, one on the ground floor, once on the first floor.

Vicky

im not sure that's right...  that would just be a converted flat, as opposed to a purpose-built flat. 
Im not 100% sure what constitutes a maisonette, but i've always been under the (possibly false?) impression that it's a flat which is spread over more than 1 floor

I've always understood a maisonette to mean half a house, usually the top half.

As I said in the 'other' thread:

I'm confused as the ads I saw for maisonettes always described them as being on two floors...which just goes to show you that you really just have to read the descriptions and ask questions of the EA beforehand.