By the time the long-awaited Crossrail project comes into full operation in 2018, experts predict it will have boosted London house prices by £35 billion, according to TheMoveChannel.
The project, Europe’s largest infrastructure construction, which began in 2009, spans from Reading and Heathrow in the west to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. Crossrail will be operational in 2018, cutting commute times for millions of journey across the capital, and according to research by CBRE, is already having an effect on property values with investors swarming to destinations such as Ilford to take advantage of the capital growth.
With the average journey time to Central London being reduced by 15 minutes, new areas of the capital will become commuter hotspots where they were once thought to be too remote, while property companies have been marketing on the basis of being near a Crossrail station since the final route was confirmed.
The CBRE report suggests that a 10 per cent reduction in commuting times can cause house prices to increase by as much as 6 per cent. Indeed, since Crossrail received the go-ahead, prices around its 37 host stations have increased by 31 per cent over the wider market, exceeding original estimates.
A new revised forecast predicts that property prices around those stations will increase by 3.3 per cent per annum – over and above wider house price growth – until the full effect of Crossrail has been realised.
Greedy sellers keep property on the market for an extra month, especially in London
This revised price growth prediction comes after research from Nationwide examined what impact the line is having in more detail, suggesting that its main beneficiaries so far have been in the west of the capital. On the west side of the route, rates of house price growth have been “well above the rates recorded” in the region as a whole and the UK average since the announcement of the project.
The more muted influence of Crossrail on house prices to the east of Central London is attributed to the fact that the line does not extend so far away from the capital.
