Buying a home along Melbourne’s train lines has always been a ticket to house price growth, but some stations offer budget-conscious buyers a chance to capitalise too.

A new data crunch has placed a dollar value on Melbourne’s train stations, using median house prices to work out how much commuters pay per kilometre to live along their lines.

While — unsurprisingly — the data showed buyers paid more to live closer to the city, a few affordable sweet spots emerged.

Distances were measured from a suburb’s border to the CBD. Only one station was used per suburb, because residents have different preferences for the favourite station, and the City Loop was also excluded. March median prices were modelled by Domain Group chief economist Andrew Wilson.

The cheapest station closest to the city was Melton, 34 kilometres west of the CBD. The median house price of $265,250 translated to just $7711 per kilometre of track.

Barry Plant agent Ned Nikolic said buyers in the area wanted to live close to Melton station and would pay a premium up to $10,000 for a home within walking distance, as opposed to a bus ride away.

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The cheapest suburb at the 10 kilometre mark from the city was Reservoir, where buyers forked out $60,000 per kilometre. This was in stark contrast to the same mark to the city’s east and south, where 10 kilometres leads to Camberwell and Brighton — costing $181,000 and $208,738 per kilometre, respectively.

In the west, even though West Footscray was just seven kilometres from the CBD, buyers paid $90,000 per kilometre.

Buyers’ advocate Cate Bakos said compared with the east and south, land values were considerably more affordable in the west and north, relative to the CBD.

Historically, there were more industrial areas in the west, with properties housing local workers on lower incomes, she said.

Though the median house price in Sunshine, 12 kilometres from the city, had jumped 29.8 per cent over the year to $629,500, Ms Bakos said there was still potential for growth.

“We have commuters who absolutely look along the train line because they want an easy commute into town,” she said.

“It’s well known in the property world that if you can be within walking distance to a train station, your property will bode much better for capital growth.”

Dr Wilson said many of the suburbs in the north and west were ripe for gentrification.

“That’s why we’re seeing those areas grow, because buyers are taking a new evaluation of what these suburbs offer and what advantages they have,” he said.

“What we’re seeing in Melbourne is the strongest growth in the west and north, part of that is the realisation that they are very well serviced by infrastructure, particularly trains.”

In terms of capital growth, the data reflected the continued strength of Melbourne’s prestige market.

The train line with the fastest growing prices, calculated by the average of growth per station on each line, was Alamein. All the suburbs on the line — from Richmond to Ashburton — recorded solid growth, with no outliers dragging down the average.

Local agents say pocket-sized Glen Huntly’s house median could be easily swayed by a higher proportion of more expensive sales.

Jellis Craig’s Michael Millington said the Alamein line was a big selling point for families because it connected homes to their children’s schools, mainly in the private school belt.

Developers were paying a premium for knockdowns where they could build two townhouses on a block, and family buyers were also drawn into the area to build new homes.

The agency recently sold a 1940s three-bedroom house on about 820 square metres, within walking distance to the station, at 45 Alamein Avenue, Ashburton, for $1.7 million at auction, more than $200,000 over reserve.