After more than a few false starts, the white elephant that is high-speed rail might finally be leaving the station between Sydney and Newcastle. With the starting horn well and truly sounded now, you might want to get your ducks in a row if you're looking to invest in property along the route.

What's happening?

Yesterday's news from the high-speed rail authority was probably overhyped on your evening news bulletin. It was more of a plan to announce a plan. Soon.

Nearly 30 boreholes are being drilled along the corridor as part of the High Speed Rail Authority’s (HSRA) business case for the route. That work will guide decisions on tunnel depths, how to cross the Hawkesbury River, and how to carve through the sandstone escarpment into the Central Coast. The government has committed 500 million dollars to planning and corridor protection for this first stage, with the business case due by the end of the year. If you're playing along at home, it feels a bit like that scene from The Castle where "Dale dug a hole".

If completed, the high-speed rail link between Sydney and Newcastle via the Central Coast would significantly reduce travel times between the three locales. Sydney to the Central Coast would take around half an hour, compared with the 90 minutes it currently takes. Sydney to Newcastle, meanwhile, would be cut to an hour, down from the 2.5+ hours it takes now.

Regardless of the material involved in the announcement, property values in the right postcodes won’t wait for a ribbon-cutting. Property prices are set to go up from what Cotality told me is called "the announcement effect".

The 'announcement effect'

Tim Lawless, research director at Cotality (formerly CoreLogic), believes the impact on housing values tends to begin long before the first sleepers are laid.

He pointed to Sydney Metro’s first stage from Cherrybrook to Chatswood as a blueprint. “Most of the growth happened before it was even completed,” he told me yesterday. “Investors start to target that market, and maybe owner-occupiers as well. It’s just about getting in early.”

That speculation phase can deliver sharp gains for neighbourhoods that are expected to benefit from improved connectivity. The catch: it’s not without risk. Lawless noted Sydney’s high-speed rail has been announced “many times in the past”, and buying on promises rather than progress can leave investors holding the bag if timelines slip.

Where property prices will start going up first

If high-speed rail actually arrives, the Central Coast becomes a standout beneficiary. It already sits within Sydney’s formal statistical boundary, yet remains cheaper than most of Greater Sydney with a median value around one million dollars.

“It’s a pretty affordable market, even though it’s seen significant growth,” Lawless said, adding that the growth has come off a relatively low base. Shaving an hour off the rail trip would fundamentally shift the lifestyle-to-commute trade-off. More people could live near the beach and still work in Sydney without the current productivity and fatigue penalty.

Given the choice between the Central Coast and outer-west Sydney at similar price points, Lawless argues many would choose the coast for climate, amenity and liveability alone. Faster rail simply tilts the scales further.

The calculus extends all the way to the end of the line in Newcastle, where property prices would also see themselves elevating as Sydney becomes closer than ever thanks to the new rail link.

Look beyond NSW entirely and the picture gets more interesting. A future line running from Sydney to Brisbane would drop stops into a string of coastal cities that have long struggled with limited access but enviable lifestyles: Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, Ballina and others.

“Anywhere that was connected with high-speed rail would be a beneficiary from a housing pricing perspective,” Lawless said. For hybrid workers who only need to be in-office a couple of days a week, being within a two-hour high-speed commute turns “too far” into “suddenly realistic”.

That might help relieve pressure on capital cities by shifting demand into more affordable regional markets – if, and only if, transport is accompanied by schools, health services and local infrastructure to support population growth. Without that, rail could create boomtown strain rather than balance.

Will your property prices go down because of high-speed rail?

One common question is whether improving access to cheaper regions cools growth in the city itself. Lawless thinks that’s unlikely.

This isn’t a zero-sum reshuffle where regional gains mean metropolitan losses. Faster rail broadens the practical commuter belt, expanding rather than cannibalising Sydney’s buyer pool.

The only pockets that could suffer are those too close to the tracks or stations, where noise and disruption outweigh convenience – and even then, Lawless expects those cases to be rare given the likely use of tunnels.

So while high-speed rail is still in the planning and soil-testing stage, property is set to move around the areas that are likely to see connections. The property market rarely waits for certainty.