Crossrail to Add £5.5bn to House Prices
The high-speed rail service, Crossrail, is not due to launch until 2018, but is already increasing house prices along its route.
Crossrail’s Land and Property Director, Ian Lindsay, believes that the service will add a total of £5.5 billion to values. This prediction arrives as 26 miles of tunnels under London are completed. The first homes above a Crossrail station have also been finished.
The line ranges from Reading in the west to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east and will drastically reduce travel times to the capital. Additionally, it will increase the capacity of the Tube by 10%.
Head of Research at Hamptons International, Johnny Morris, comments: “But the big change is in the built environment and areas around the stations.”1
Regeneration is developing alongside the creation of the new transport system, with 3.3m sq. ft. of residential, office and retail space planned above Crossrail stations.
Chairman of Crossrail, Sir Terry Morgan, observes: “If you go back in time, railway has always created regeneration… as the Tube grew so did London, and this Crossrail programme will go through exactly the same experience again.”1
A total of 57,000 new homes will be built on the route and councils are updating town centres. Clever homebuyers and investors are beginning to pinpoint the neighbourhoods that would benefit them.
Woolwich, South East London, is set to become a major transport area. The Woolwich Crossrail station is being constructed within the 88-acre Royal Arsenal Riverside, a Berkeley Homes development that will feature 5,000 new homes when completed in 2030.
Over a thousand of these properties will be above the station and the first phase has already been built on the east side.
90% of the 631 apartments at Cannon Square have already been sold off-plan. The remaining three-bedroom, two-bathroom flats are priced from £647,500 and a duplex penthouse costs £875,000.
Managing Director of Berkeley Homes (East Thames), Karl Whiteman, says: “Crossrail is without doubt the most important new transport infrastructure for London and the South East for a generation. The new Crossrail station will make Woolwich one of the best-connected parts of the capital.”1
Furthermore, Crossrail has planning permission for almost 400 new homes at Armourer’s Court, in five buildings set within a landscaped garden on the west side of the station.
Since the Crossrail project was approved in 2008, the value of homes around the stations has risen by 20% more than underlying capital appreciation in the capital and South East, according to CBRE.
CBRE expects house prices to increase further, with Crossrail adding 13%, or £60,000, more than average growth by 2018. This will be around 20% in London, with the typical house price rising by £100,000.