A train on the new Redcliffe Peninsula line.

Redcliffe residents waited more than 130 years for a train line, and now that it’s here it is raising interest in the peninsula and its property market.

The Redcliffe Peninsula was cut off from the rest of the southeast’s rail network, until the long mooted train line finally opened in late-2016.

Locals can now hop on a train from any of Redcliffe’s six train stations, and that has become a juicy selling point for the area’s real estate agents.

General manager at LJ Hooker Redcliffe, Kylie Loof, said the new train line was often a topic of discussion from a certain type of buyer.

“The people that are talking about it are from other states,” Ms Loof said. “They ask ‘is it close to the new train line?’.”

The interstate interest makes a curious disparity, Ms Loof said, as many locals still kept old travelling habits from before the line opened.

She said many locals still drove across the bridge to get to Shorncliffe Station to catch the train, a tactic she said could save a bit of time on a commute to Brisbane.

She estimated that before the line opened, only about 30 per cent of investors in the area would be from interstate.

“Now it is about 50/50,” she said.

In peak times, the train from Redcliffe can take the best part of an hour to reach Brisbane’s CBD, which might sound a lot for the average Queensland
commuter.

But for one Sydney-based investor, the announcement of the train line helped him invest his hard earned cash in what he predicts will be a strong growth area.

Take Ekanayake, 29, has purchased three investment properties in the past two years, looking at long-term growth.

This home at 4 Lydia Court in Deception Bay that recently sold is just a quick drive from the new train line.

Although the properties, at Scarborough, Kallangur and Deception Bay, have not experienced immense growth in recent years, he believed this would change.

“Being from Sydney, whenever a major infrastructure with trains gets announced there is a massive growth in the area in terms of real estate,” Mr Ekanayake said.

He predicted that there would be a time when more and more Redcliffe residents would use the train, and this would be a positive for property owners.

He pointed to other changes in the area, including the new University of the Sunshine Coast campus which will open in Petrie in 2020.

“Once you’ve got 10 to 20,000 more students in the area, the value of that train line is going to be more significant,” he said.

So far growth has been modest across the Redcliffe area since the track was announced back in 2010.

In the suburb of Kippa-Ring, which has the benefit of being close to the bay and the train line, the change in the median price for a house over the past five years was 19.9 per cent.

Nearby Mango Hill had slightly stronger growth over the five years at 22.6 per cent, but it was still modest compared to booms in Sydney and Melbourne.

With interstate migration to Queensland very strong, especially in the state’s southeast, Mr Ekanayake predicted the area was due for a boost.

“There has been so much media attention on the Sydney and Melbourne markets, but once Sydney starts to cool off, which it is, it is Brisbane that takes off,” he said.

“Brisbane is almost half the price (of Sydney) so right now there is a huge gap, and that gap has got to close.”

Harcourts Redcliffe owner Steve Hawley said you could see the changes in the Redcliffe area just by looking at the skyline.

“We are seeing a lot of new townhouses and multistorey developments, there are a lot of cranes out and about,” Mr Hawley said.

“We’ve been a sleepy town for that long so it is time to move ahead.”