Homes near newly-built UK football grounds have soared in value over recent years, says new research.
Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium and Brighton & Hove Albion’s Amex Stadium have each spurred five-fold property rises over the past 20 years, while the value of homes close to Tottenham Hotspur’s new White Hart Lane Stadium has jumped by 650 per cent since 1997.
With hundreds of millions of pounds in infrastructure spending, new transport links, residential housing, restaurants and shops, stadiums commonly prompt widespread regeneration of a district.
In south London, Crystal Palace Football Club plans to build a 34,000-seat stadium costing £100 million by 2021. Chairman Steve Parish said: “This project will not only transform the stadium, which has been our home since 1924, but it will also have a positive impact on the south London community.” House prices close to the current stadium already jumped by 510 per cent between 1997 and 2017, but property experts predict further rises, outperforming the market.
“The statistics are compelling.” Said Ben Lloyd, managing director of Pure Commercial Finance, which carried out the research. “It’s great to see that as a result of the development of new football grounds it’s proven to not only stimulate local infrastructure investment, regenerate tired or unused areas of the cities but to create an unprecedented rise in house prices in the immediate area of redevelopment.”
These rises counteract a historic trend for homes near football grounds to suffer negative valuations, due to their association with noise, litter and potentially violent behaviour. The transformation of football into a family-friendly, higher-quality entertainment has reversed this impression and boosted property values.
