Brisbane River buyers wising up to risk of flooding

Flood-affected properties along the Brisbane River are still taking time to sell a year on from the 2022 downpour, although demand is still strong for absolute water views.

This three-storey home on Morley St, Chelmer for $3m despite the lower-level rumpus room and storage area being inundated less than a year earlier.

Flood-affected properties along the Brisbane River are still taking time to sell a year on from the 2022 downpour, but the mass sell-offs seen a decade earlier have not eventuated.

Prices at the top end of the Brisbane market have generally defied trends, including in those suburbs hugging the edge of the river, data from researcher PropTrack shows.

While demand for the finite freestanding homes with absolute views is still strong, agents say those that have taken on water are getting harder to sell.

Adcock Prestige principal Jason Adcock last month sold a three-storey home at 31 Morley St, Chelmer for $3m despite the lower-level rumpus room and storage area being inundated less than a year earlier. He said people were making judgment calls based on flood risk.

“There are two different parts of the market: those that were flood-free are highly sought after, and those that are flood-affected,” Mr Adcock said.

“If water came through the main areas, they are very hard to sell. At the end of the day, buyers are very cautious.

“That (Morley St) was a triple-story house affected on the bottom level. We got $3m for that and it was a 30-year-old house that needed a lot of renovations.”

31 Morley St, Chelmer.

Place Bulimba managing director Sarah Hackett said the number of riverfront sales actually increased over the six months to September, clocking 18 compared to the usual 14 transactions.

“The eastern suburbs like around New Farm really weren’t flood-affected, and they have held their value,” Ms Hackett said.

Suburb trend data from PropTrack shows that those further down the river bend have endured greater falls. Prices in Tennyson have fallen 15.79 per cent over the past 12 months, with drops also in Fairfield (7.21 per cent) and East Brisbane (6.69 per cent).

But it is a different story in all other riverfront suburbs, which have posted gains over the same period, topped by Teneriffe (up 43.56 per cent), Chelmer (33.96 per cent) and St Lucia (29.34 per cent)

PropTrack director of economic research Cameron Kusher said top-end prices had generally been pushing higher over the past three and 12 months, and transaction levels had remained low, suggesting there were no fire sales taking place.

“I think it highlights that the sort of blue-chip areas in Brisbane are certainly holding up much better than they are in other parts of the country, namely Sydney and Melbourne,” Mr Kusher said.

“The fact that there was flooding is not as big of a shock as it was back in 2011, when we hadn’t had a major flood event like that for 30, almost 35 years.

“The narrative back in 2011 was that the river wasn’t meant to flood any more because of Wivenhoe Dam, and clearly that was wrong.”

Mr Adcock said buyers were generally more proactive about checking flood risk, using Brisbane City Council’s updated FloodWise maps from last year.

Originally published as Brisbane River buyers wising up to risk of flooding