:quality(82))
HOUSE prices are likely to ramp up in western Sydney next year prompted by the long-awaited opening of the fast-growing region’s new airport, a property expert says.
The Western Sydney International Airport, scheduled to open in 2026, this year received an extra $835 million in state government funding to support development across the 11,200 hectare site. The budget funding included infrastructure investment to enable build of homes and businesses in the surrounding areas.
Jack Harris, principal of independent auction service provider Fox Auctions, said western Sydney’s housing market was seeing strong price growth at present, which would likely be supported by the opening of the airport.
Harris, whose firm operates across NSW including in Sydney’s west, said infrastructure promised as part of the new airport was a factor that would entice people to the area. He also cited jobs set to be located at the airport as a driver of higher prices.
“We’ve already seen some suburbs that are very close to the airport – Badgerys Creek, Bringelly and Luddenham – they’ve already started to increase significantly in land value,” Harris said. “It’s having a knock-on effect in the surrounding suburbs.”
“It’s mainly due to jobs that are going to be created off the back of the airport,” he added.
According to Harris, the airport-driven lift in demand would add to already strong buyer interest in the area. Many first-home buyers were being drawn to the outer suburban area because they were priced out of the city’s “more premium suburbs and blue-chip suburbs”.
“There’s a lot of immigrants entering the market as well, people that are entering the country are migrating out that way probably due to the affordability of it.”
Griffith University’s Tony Matthews cautioned that it was hard to forecast the impact of airplane noise on nearby suburbs, and house prices, until the airport opened.
“There’s going to be a sweet spot for certain property owners in certain locations where they’re situated between proximity to the airport in terms of convenience but also they’re not suffering from noise intrusion,” said Matthews, a senior lecturer in the university’s school of engineering and built environment.
Matthews said while the airport would bring with it jobs, there was a chance airport staff would commute from other parts of the city, or that they already lived in western Sydney.
He said it was possible people who took the jobs “will just give up jobs in eastern Sydney”.