Buyers and renters want to move into flood ravaged town

The Rochester housing market is under pressure as locals search for homes to live in as theirs are repaired. But there is a twist.

A home on Mackay Street, Rochester for sale, following flood.

Rochester residents are leaving the town in droves while others struggle to find a place to live as the town continues to recover from devastating floods.

The housing market is under mounting pressure as locals search for homes to live in while their own are repaired but real estate agents have maintained a positive outlook.

There are currently about 40 properties for sale and local Ray White real estate director Rob Hosking said he expected those would be snapped up fairly quickly.

“The demand for rentals at the moment is phenomenal, I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.

“There are calls every day from people looking for rentals, there are people walking into the office a couple of times a week to talk about it face-to-face and others are posting on Facebook asking to rent as well.”

There has also been a surprising twist.

“It’s not just people from Rochester wanting to move into something more liveable while their own homes are fixed, it’s people from outside the area wanting to move in,” Mr Hosking said.

Mr Hosking estimated that about 10 per cent of the town had decided to relocate rather than take the chance of living through another flooding event.

“We have sold a couple of homes where people have taken the insurance money and sold their home at a discount,” he said.

“Those properties have been bought by builders and it’s a good sign we will get new housing stock built on those sites which is a positive.”

Nationals leader Peter Walsh has called on the state government to fund a study at Lake Eppalock that could help prevent major flooding disasters at Rochester in the future.

“We want an investigation done to see if changes could be made at Lake Eppalock which would allow water to be released gradually, to avoid another disaster like 2011 or 2022 floods.

“For instance, we know there are gated reservoirs at the Hume dam on the Murray and Eildon Dam on the Goulburn system and those can release large quantities of water gradually,” he said.

“We want modelling done on the possibility of an emergency spillway and prerelease so the water would go more gradually down the river and not flood houses in Rochester.”

He questioned Premier Daniel Andrews about it in parliament on December 20.

The premier said it was “above politics”.

The federal government has set up a $200 million Disaster Ready Fund for state governments to seek money for projects to reduce risks and better prepare for future floods.

The Insurance Council of Australia has stated there have been more than 13,255 claims lodged across Victoria from the flood event, with more than 8520 property claims and 1789 motor vehicle claims.

It will hold a community information session on Wednesday, January 18 at the 4 R’s (Rochester Lawn Tennis Club) from 5pm for people impacted by last October’s severe weather and flood in and around Rochester.