So, how do you spot an up-and-coming area as opposed to one that has already arrived?

The formula used to involve counting builders’ skips and whether either Poundland or Waitrose had plans to open in the area.

However, a new method uses coffee and fried chicken shops. We think it has more than a nugget of truth to it.

In a nutshell, posh coffee shops tells you the area has arrived and house prices are high.

A lot of fried chicken shops tells you the exact finger lickin’ opposite.

What, of course, you actually want is an area which has plenty of Costas but very few chicken pieces available by the bucket, but where house prices are low.

Sam Floy did the research after searching for a flat in London and hearing the estate agent describe the area as “up and coming”.

He said: “Rather than believe the phrase was merely plucked out of the air, I struck upon a theory that future house prices could be explained by looking at the relative number of coffee shops and fried chicken outlets in the area.”

Enlisting the help of data scientists, three heatmaps of London were created – a heatmap of coffee shops, one of chicken shops, and one of house prices.

The method has proved an unqualified triumph.

It found that the cheapest house prices in London were all very low in coffee-bean counts.

Indeed, most of the cheapest places to buy property in London are practically outside London – places like New Malden (which used to be in Surrey), and Barking (which was in Essex).

However, Floy did conclude that Peckham (SE15) shows sure signs of being up and coming: it has a good selection of coffee shops, not much in the way of the good colonel, and relatively low house prices.

Floy believes that his method could be of particular interest to property investors.

We think the method could also work in other places and be very useful to estate agents wondering where next to set up shop.

However, Floy has met something of a setback.

He sent his findings off to Improbable Research (the home of “research that makes people laugh and then think”) but was turned down for lack of scientific rigour.