When floodwaters started to recede in south-east Queensland, real estate agent Daniel Burrell noticed a stark change in queries from potential investors.
“It started prompting the questions of: ‘Did this flood? Is it in a flood zone? What happened in 2022? What happened in 2011?’,” Mr Burrell said.
“They’re even stretching back that far now, just asking about properties and what happened to them.”
The Toowoomba property agent said despite the city escaping major flooding this year, the issue had become front of mind for buyers not only concerned about potential damage, but also the cost of insurance in flood-prone areas.
“Not having to worry about getting insurance that can handle flooding or making sure they’ve got enough to cover it … it’s reassuring for them,” Mr Burrell said.
Areas boycotted
The flood is also shifting preferences of interstate buyers looking for a property in Brisbane, as two major floods in 11 years made them have second thoughts.
“Two weeks ago, they were saying, ‘I’m alright with that being a low-risk [flood] area’,” said buyers’ advocate Wendy Russell.
Climate risk analyst and the chief executive officer of firm Climate Valuation, Karl Mallon, said with extreme weather events becoming more frequent, “savvy buyers” were now “starting to ask quite pertinent questions”.
“They want to understand the climate change impacts on a property, whether that’s flooding, sea-level rise, forest fire.”
Mr Mallon said buyers concerned about natural disasters should ask certain questions.
“Is it in a flood plain? What return frequency is the flood? Is the building elevated above the ground? When was it built? Was it built to a building standard, say before 1990? Or after 2000?” he said.
Climate change concerns
CoreLogic property data analyst Eliza Owen said, based on 2011 flooding in Brisbane, property prices would likely drop in the short term.
But climate change could further exacerbate buyers’ concerns.
“And, of course, this is one of the implications of climate change, so I think that these kinds of events have the capacity to really shift demands the more frequent they are.”
Mr Mallon said after the clean-up finished, authorities would also need to consider what should happen to people whose homes were not insured.
“We should be really thinking about grants for upgrading these buildings to be climate change ready.”
Investor demand
While investors might be avoiding flood-prone areas for now, Ms Russell had her doubts about how long that would last.
“There are still a lot of investors looking to buy in Brisbane. The Olympic Games has been a huge driver for investors,” Ms Russell said.
“I do believe, moving forward, that people will forget and then it will just go back to business as usual with property.”
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