Would you pay £20K more to live closer to a station?

Londoners are paying £20,000 more for the privilege of living some 1,000 meters closer to the nearest rail or tube station, according to a report from Nationwide.

Londoners use trains and tubes to travel to work much more than the rest of the population, meaning that a home closer to the station makes for an easier commute.

‘Our figures suggest that a property located 500 metres from a station would attract a 7% price premium (approximately £20,300) over an otherwise identical property 1,500 metres from a station’, Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide's chief economist, said in the building society’s special report on London housing and transport today.

While it is likely that being close to a station also means proximity to other services, that remains a lot of money to spend to avoid a few extra minutes' walking each day. Maybe Londoners are just plain lazy, at least those who haven’t mustered the willpower to cycle to work.

And besides aren’t there better ways to spend that £20k like putting it towards a larger house or one with a garden?

That question extends to their rural counterparts – do transport links feature high up in your check list of priorities when buying a house?

Does Nationwide’s research just add more evidence of the absurdity of house prices in the capital, which now average around £290,000?