Crossrail delays yet to derail house price growth surrounding its stations

With Londoners facing yet further delays where Crossrail is concerned, leading London letting and sales agent, Benham and Reeves, has looked at what impact the development has had on house prices along the route, and how this growth has been impacted by its failure to be delivered on time.

Benham and Reeves looked at the average house price in the immediate areas surrounding each Crossrail station since it was approved over a decade ago and how these compare to the wider area each station is located within. Benham and Reeves also looked at the same data since the first delays were announced last year and what impact these delays have had on Crossrail price growth since.

Since launch

The data shows that when approved in the midst of the financial crash back in 2008, the average house price surrounding Crossrail stations sat at £330,770. Today, these house prices have jumped 83.9% to an average of £655,103, compared to a jump of just 56.7% across the wider areas these stations are located in where house prices average just £472,486.

The largest increase has been surrounding Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street, where property prices had slumped to just over £700,000 during the market crash, but have rebounded by some 343.5% since to hit an average of over £3,000,000 today.

Since the delays

However, the latest announcement that Crossrail won’t be ready until 2021 is the latest in a string of delays to the project, with the first of these announced in September 2018.

Despite these delays, house prices surrounding many of the Crossrail stations have continued to outperform the wider market increasing by an average of 2.1% over the last year, while the wider areas in which they’re located have struggled with political uncertainty and seen an average drop of -1.9%.

The largest increases over the last year has again been around Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street, although Whitechapel has seen the third largest rate of growth in the last year, with prices up 27.3% compared to a drop of -2.3% across Tower Hamlets as a whole.

By 2021?

Based on the previous data on Crossrail house price growth, Benham and Reeves forecast that house prices surrounding each of these stations could increase by a further 4.7% by the time the project is hopefully delivered in 2021.

Director of Benham and Reeves, Marc von Grundherr, commented:

“It’s clear that despite the ongoing delays to its launch, the future benefits of Crossrail continue to stimulate price growth at a top level in areas surrounding a station, although there are a handful of areas where Crossrail house price growth has lagged behind the wider area over the last decade.

This is of course, due to the fact that while price growth has accelerated since 2008, some areas have now come off the boil due to their ever increasing price tag and more recently due to wider Brexit uncertainty and a consistent string of delays to the project.

That said, the top line figures suggest that despite these delays, house prices surrounding the majority of Crossrail stations continue to outperform the wider London market and while not every station has been a silver bullet against poor house price growth, Crossrail remains very sought after amongst buyers with one eye on a future price increase.”

Note: Left side of the table shows the change in house price surrounding each station with the percentage change highlighted in yellow. The right side of the table shows that change in house price across the wider area for each station with the percentage change highlighted in grey. Each table is ranked by Crossrail station house price growth from the highest to the lowest. Heathrow terminals were excluded from the table due to a lack of property surrounding the immediate stations.