Could the highway really be pushing up house prices?
Raine and Horne executive chairman, Angus Raine, certainly thinks so.
Mr Raine said property prices in the Mountains have increased by 5 to 10 per cent over the past year since the highway widening was completed.
“Work on the dual carriageway seems to have dragged on since the days of Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson, but the road’s completion earlier this year means the Great Western Highway is virtually an extension of the M4 Motorway,” Mr Raine said.
“This has led to increased traffic to the Mountains and beyond, with property interest and prices spiking as a result.”
Gary Brown, principal of First National Real Estate Mid Mountains, said the state of the road “definitely helped”. But there were other factors at work, too, he said, particularly in Lawson, where the opening of several new shops had generated increased interest in the area.
“But the biggest factor here is Sydney has gone ballistic, so every place within two hours of Sydney has boomed because people just get pushed out.”
Mr Brown said the Mountains had seen “eight to 10 years of little growth, then we had two years of boom. There’s been a $70,000 to $100,000 rise in the last 12 months.”
He had just sold a house for the second time in six months after the owners divorced. “Six months ago it was 430 [thousand] and I just got 500 for it.”
Glen Ebzery, principal of Raine and Horne Leura and Raine and Horne Katoomba, said the finalisation of the roadworks, after years of frustrating bottlenecks, had resulted in more visitors.
“The traffic flow is very constant, and whether people are stopping at Wentworth Falls, Leura or Katoomba, or driving onto Orange, Bathurst or Mudgee, our region is very busy, especially on weekends,” he said.
The knock-on effect for real estate was that more aspiring green changers were again focused on snapping up quality Mountains properties, he said.
“The prices that have been achieved for some Blue Mountains properties are unheard of – and well above the highs of the last real estate boom in 2003 and 2004.”
He cited as an example a four-bedroom house he recently sold in Leura for $705,000. A year ago, it would have sold for $650,000.
- JENNIE CURTIN
The prices that have been achieved for some Blue Mountains properties are unheard of.
- Glen Ebzery
