If owning a home is the great Australian dream, owning a beachfront property is the ultimate homeowner fantasy. But increasingly, weather events such as the “bomb cyclone” that lashed NSW this week are raising doubts about the safety of beachfront properties, not only in terms of lives, but as an investment.

Take the string of coastal properties in the NSW Central Coast seaside town of Wamberal, forced to evacuate in response to the week’s wild weather. Collectively, the properties are worth about $123 million, or an average of about $5.5 million each. The median price in the town has increased 56.5 per cent since 2020, according to data from online property group Domain.