Brighter Buying

Market Update: What will the floods to do Brisbane property values?

by Richard Parker, Sales Manager 9 March 2022

As Brisbane once again cleans up and assesses flood damage, those looking to buy and sell might be wondering if the floods will have an impact on property prices.

Well, it depends. More than 15,000 Brisbane homes across multiple suburbs had some level of flooding.

Directly impacted homes will face the biggest near-term challenges, but in the long run, flood-affected suburbs have performed fairly well – and even outperformed city-wide averages in some areas.

“Lessons learned from the 2011 flood event are looming large over homebuyers and investors looking for a foothold in the Sunshine State… with 20 of the hardest hit riverside suburbs having outperformed the rest of Brisbane,” reported realestate.com.au this month.

In the near term, the floods will also likely affect the already tight rental market, which is not great news for tenants, but might be welcome news to those seeking strong rental yields.

“Investors were expected to see strong rental yield gains going forward too in Brisbane, given its already tight vacancy rate was expected to be hit harder when insurers look to relocate flood affected families into short term accommodation,” realestate.com.au reported.

Rents for short-term accommodation are also expected to get a boost as Australia reopened its borders to double vaccinated tourists and visa holders last month, reports the ABC. Again, not such great news for tenants, but good news for investors.

So back on the flood front, what’s likely to happen to prices in the long term wash up? The impact on prices may not be as dramatic as the impact of the floods themselves.

“We did some research on the most flooded areas after 2011, and of the top 20 most impacted suburbs, 19 of them outperformed over the following five years,” said
BuyersBuyers co-founder Pete Wargent.

“So, most likely people will look through the short term impacts is my guess.”

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