How much it pays to buy close to a train station in Melbourne

Being within a 15-minute walk of a station can add a premium to your home’s value. These are Melbourne’s best paying stations for price growth, and the median prices throughout the network.

Franco and Helen Theuma, pictured with kids Amelie and Thomas, loved living near Sunshine station before listing their 14 Dunbar Ave home with a $800,000-$880,000 price guide. Picture: Tony Gough

Being within a 15-minute walk of a train station can add at least a 10 per cent premium to a home’s value, experts say.

And despite the pandemic keeping Melburnians largely off the rails for the better part of two years, they’re tipping easy access to public transport will remain at the top of buyers’ wishlists into 2022.

Real Estate Buyer’s Agents Association president Cate Bakos said “shops and a train station within walking distance” were the two location musts for the vast majority of buyers she worked with.

RELATED: The three Melbourne suburbs named the most affordable and liveable

What an interest rate rise means for every Melbourne suburb

The Victorian suburbs best placed to weather predicted 2022 correction

Living near a train station remains near the top of buyer’s wishlists, despite Covid taking most of us off the rails. Picture: Tony Gough

“I’m really reluctant to pick an investment property that isn’t walking distance to public transport, and I favour train stations because trams are slow,” she said.

“Anything from 150m to 2km (from a station) is the sweet spot, with 200m-800m the ideal distance.

“When you’re closer than that, you’ll hear trains and your land value will reflect that. When you’re further, you’ll be tempted to jump in the car.”

Ms Bakos said being in that sweet spot added at least 10 per cent to a home’s price, “probably more”.

But she warned not all train stations were of equal value, urging househunters to research things like whether the one they were looking to buy near would be skipped by peak-hour services, or carry louder freight trains.

A three-bedroom apartment at 42/192-196 The Ave, Parkville, near Royal Park train station, is for sale with a $940,000-$1.02m price guide.

Ms Bakos believed use of Melbourne’s rails would “bounce back” from Covid lulls, with projects like the Metro Tunnel, Melbourne Airport Rail and level crossing removals to be “game changers” for the property markets they would directly impact once completed.

She highlighted new suburb Arden – which would rise from “disused rail yards wedged between North Melbourne and Kensington” – as a prime example of a region that would be boosted by a new station.

New research from PropTrack, REA Group’s data business, shows another suburb set to benefit from the Metro Tunnel is already home to Melbourne’s best-performing train station region for home price gains.

The median price for houses flanking Royal Park, on the Upfield line in Parkville, has rocketed 37.9 per cent to $1.8m in the past year.

Three other train station regions notched house price growth in excess of 30 per cent: neighbouring Crib Point and Morradoo, and Diamond Creek. A typical unit near Sunshine station wasn’t far behind, with a 29.7 per cent gain to $502,500.

Near Crib Point station, 295 Stony Point Rd is up for grabs with a $1.2m-$1.32m price guide.

PropTrack economist Paul Ryan said the train station median prices were determined by identifying all suburbs that had more than half their dwellings within 1.5km of the station, and calculating a new median based on the properties in those suburbs.

He noted areas where train infrastructure and improvements were planned offered good buying, as they typically experienced an initial housing price boost once a project was announced, with a more significant “period of outperformance” kicking in once it was completed.

“Announcements around train stations are simultaneously made with announcements of new shopping precincts, schools, apartment developments – it tends to be a concerted infrastructure push,” he said.

Barry Plant Sunshine director Jason Allen said buyers of all types had converged on his suburb “purely off the back of the approved airport link plan”.

Sunshine, where 14 Dunbar Ave is for sale, has already been boosted by the announcement of the Melbourne Airport Rail.

“It’s not just mum and dads and first-home buyers, but big developers purchasing land to land bank or build apartments on,” Mr Allen said.

“It’s people buying for the future, who are seeing this is going to be the next up-and-coming place. Prices have reflected that – we’re seeing sales well above $1m.”

Mr Allen tipped a second surge once the project was completed, due in 2029.

He agreed train station proximity had remained near the top of buyers’ must-have lists, even throughout Covid, noting being within a 15-minute walk was adding at least 10 per cent to sale prices.

“Buyers want access to public transport for convenience, but also because they know it will add to their capital growth,” he said.

Sign up to the Herald Sun Weekly Real Estate Update. Click here to get the latest Victorian property market news delivered direct to your inbox.

MORE: Skydiving champ lists two Melbourne pads in Byron Bay move

Shock report finds 1.5 million Aussies at risk of homelessness

Fahour makes $900,000 in 18-month Elwood house flip

Sunshine family prizes being on the rails

There has been plenty of investment in Sunshine – including a train station upgrade – since the Theumas bought in. Picture: Tony Gough

Closeness to Sunshine station for an “easy commute” to the CBD was a high priority for Franco Theuma when he bought his family home about 12 years ago.

Living near the Sunbury line has since had its perks, including “regular services and express lines” into the city.

“They redid the train station, too – it’s quite new now,” Mr Theuma said.

“They’ve also redone the whole town square. There’s a new library there. Hampshire Rd, where all the shops are, has been totally redone so all the shops you need are there.

“There’s obviously been a lot of investment in Sunshine.”

Inside the family’s 14 Dunbar Ave home.

The gentrifying suburb is set for a further boost, with Sunshine station set to be the last stop before the airport on the long-awaited Melbourne Airport Rail, due for completion in
2029.

Mr Theuma, partner Helen and kids Amelie, 6, and Thomas, 3, won’t be living in Sunshine when the line is complete – they’ve listed their 14 Dunbar Ave home with an $800,000-$880,000 price guide for a December 11 auction to move to Melbourne’s north.

But their selling agent, Barry Plant’s Jason Allen, said the fact the airport link was on the way was enough to boost buyer demand in the suburb as people bought “for the future”.

The family carried out a renovated and added a small extension to the four-bedroom house about seven years ago, Mr Theuma said, adding they would miss its “big backyard” most.