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The London Crossrail line has finally been given the go-ahead, the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is in the process of being extended, and the East London Line will link Highbury & Islington station in North London, with West Croydon, south of the river. These rail developments will transform thousands of journeys, pushing up prices in existing commuter locations and creating new property hotspots along the way.

Tunnel vision

Crossrail will slash journey times and bump up property prices on both sides of the capital

BACKGROUND

• Change at Stratford

• Investing in the right area

• First-class upgrade

• Rebirth in the forest

London: On track for a new boom

It may take 10 years but neglected east London areas are tipped to benefit as investors target homes along the new £10 billion Crossrail route, reports Graham Norwood

But housebuyers will not see price rises overnight. Crossrail , the most ambitious and far-reaching of these projects, is not scheduled to be finished until 2017. The new line will link Maidenhead, in the West, with Shenfield and Abbey Wood, in the East. There will be a new tunnel under the West End and the City of London, and journey times from Central London to Heathrow will be halved. City commuters from Maidenhead, Berkshire, who currently swap train for Tube at Paddington, will be able to ride direct to Liverpool Street in 52 minutes, shaving 20 minutes off their journey. The links towards Stratford and Abbey Wood, in East London, will be great for regeneration, but will be too late for the 2012 Olympics.

Hartley Beames, an associate for Knight Frank residential development, says that Crossrail will produce new hotspots where property prices are likely to increase above the market in general. However, prices in Crossrail areas have changed little since the project was given the government go-ahead in October. The slowing of the property market is partly to blame, but it is also likely that investors are cautious about a project that has so often stalled.

Several other rail projects will be finished well before Crossrail and are already having an impact. By June 2010, the East London Line will run from Dalston Junction, in the North, to New Cross, Crystal Palace and West Croydon in the South. It will stop off at the southeast London suburbs of Brockley, Honor Oak Park, Forest Hill, Sydenham and Penge West, turning the current trickle of property buyers from the City and Canary Wharf into a steadier stream.

By 2011, the long-awaited extension between Dalston Junction and Highbury & Islington will be complete. Prices in Dalston, a more inaccessible and less gentrified part of Hackney, have already risen in anticipation of the link. For example, a one-bedroom flat at The Interchange scheme would have cost £210,000 off-plan in 2006, but these small flats are now being sold for £250,000.

Commuters travelling east and out to the Thames Gateway area are likely to benefit soon. The extension of the City Airport branch of the DLR to Woolwich Arsenal is due to open early next year, cutting journey times into Canary Wharf to 19 minutes and Bank to 27 minutes. “The plans for the new Abbey Wood station look fantastic,” says Spencer Humble, of Robinson Jackson estate agents in nearby Plumstead. “People are asking about Crossrail, but it is still a long way off. The opening of the DLR extension next year has had much more impact so far.”

Farther out along the river, the new Ebbsfleet International station, on the high-speed Eurostar link from the Continent into St Pancras, is expected to be a major catalyst for regeneration in north Kent. At present, commuting from Dartford into London Bridge takes about 40 minutes - the new high-speed domestic rail service, to start next year, will cut that to 17 minutes, enhancing the appeal of new developments in the area, such as The Bridge, Wayne Hemingway's scheme in Dartford, where a three-bedroom house costs £295,000 (George Wimpey 0845 6760155).

According to Knight Frank, the biggest winners will be locations where large infrastructure projects converge, or where transport links are limited at present. We pick the next likely hotspots on our map, right.

WEST DRAYTON, HAYES, SOUTHALL AND HANWELL

These areas are already being regenerated, sparked by Parkwest, a development of 574 flats in West Drayton from St George (Knight Frank , 020-7173 4999). Parkwest flats, from £194,950 for a one-bed flat to £334,940 for three bedrooms, attract pilots from nearby Heathrow, first-time buyers, parents buying for their offspring studying at nearby Brunel University, and investors, who reap an average yield of 5per cent by letting to workers at Stockley Park business park. Two more big developments are planned in the area, and by putting West Drayton just eight stops from Paddington, Crossrail will be the icing on the cake.

ABBEY WOOD

Crossrail will put this quiet corner of southeast London two stops from the Isle of Dogs and four stops from Liverpool Street. Journey times into the City will be cut from 30 minutes to 17. Yet this is still one of the most affordable parts of the capital: first-time buyers can buy a three-bed house for under £250,000. However, the shortage of local amenities and abundance of unattractive 1960s council terraces keep prices low: an ex-council three-bed house costs about £210,000. But first-time buyers with jobs in the City are picking up some of the two and three-bed Victorian terraced houses on streets nearer the station for between £210,000 and £250,000.

STRATFORD

Stratford, in the East London borough of Newham, is already well connected. It has links to the mainline trains, London Underground and DLR, and will shortly be joined to the high-speed Eurostar link.

Add to that the building of a new Olympic stadium and Olympic village before 2012, and you have the makings of a property hotspot. The estate agent Knight Frank predicts that Crossrail is likely to further boost the regeneration of the area. Property prices in some of the shinier new-build schemes are already high. A two-bedroom flat on the 16th floor of the One Stratford development at the centre of the Olympic village costs £389,950 (Cityzen: 020-7790 1818). But prices in the borough of Newham overall have been deprived of the “Olympic effect”. The average property has risen in price by 17per cent since the success of the Olympic bid in 2005 - the same as the national average, according to Land Registry figures.

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