Knight Frank recently reported that “Residential property values around central Crossrail stations are already outperforming, and will rise a further 40% over next five years” and Lanice Steward, managing director of Knight Frank Anne Porter, and she has said that she predicts more or less the same will happen in Cape Town, wherever the Myciti bus routes are.
Knight Frank’s Crossrail 2013 report, launched last week, examines the impact London’s most significant rail infrastructure project for 20 years has already had, and will have on surrounding residential markets.
The report introduces the first ‘Crossrail Index’ which will monitor prices in these areas, between now and the opening of Crossrail in 2018 and beyond.
Crossrail, which was given Royal Assent in 2008, is due to open in 2018 and will cut travel times across the Capital dramatically.
The average value of residential property within a 10 minute walk of the central stations has risen by more than 30% on average since Crossrail was given the go-ahead in 2008, outperforming growth across wider prime central London by 8%.
The additional average price uplift across all central station 10 minute ‘walk zones’ between now and Crossrail opening is forecast at an additional 1,2% a year over and above the prime central London forecast – giving an average 40% rise in prices between 2013 and the end of 2018.
Housing in Farringdon and Tottenham Court Road will see the largest uplift – values will rise by an additional 1,5% per year over and above the growth expected in prime central London prices to give a total increase of 43% in the next five years.
There are 7 929 private new homes with planning, under construction or recently completed in the central Crossrail ‘walk zones’, said the Knight Frank report.
In Cape Town, says Steward, where there is an ability to walk to a bus station or bus stop – as in London – values will increase and as the cost of fuel and commuting in one’s own car increases and the time a person takes to get to their destination, this will add considerable value to properties on or around these routes.
There are nine more routes planned for the Myciti service in 2013, said Steward. The areas announced are along the West Coast of Cape Town, from the city through Table View, extended Parklands, along the West Coast road as far as Atlantis and Mamre. On the Atlantic Seaboard from the city, the buses will be running through Sea Point, Green Point, Mouille Point, Vredehoek, Oranjezicht and through to Hout Bay via Camps Bay.
The city service alone makes the City Bowl an exceptionally desirable place in which to live, said Steward. Given its cosmopolitan vibe, it will attract even more young professionals, who might not be able to afford the more expensive Atlantic Seaboard but might well choose to live in the city because of the bus services, instead of choosing the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town.
“As Knight Frank have shown and predicted in London, we can probably expect the properties on these routes in Cape Town to increase in price faster and by a higher percentage than those not on the route,” she said.
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