<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/oct/22/floods-have-devalued-australian-homes-by-42bn-experts-say-thats-the-cost-of-a-changing-climate>
"When Warwick Irwin returned home after a week away, he was shocked by the ruin
inside.
It was February 2022 and two days earlier his North Lismore house had flooded
to the ceiling. “It was quite a mind-blowing experience when I got into the
house when the water went down.”
He was eventually offered a buyback, and used the money to buy elsewhere –
“well above the flood level”.
“I was going to stay on but I thought about it and … there would always be an
anxiety about the next flood,” Irwin said. He was glad not to have sold at a
loss, unlike others in the region.
Almost 2,000 homes in Lismore were affected by flooding in 2022, and the price
gap between flood-prone and flood-free houses has since increased considerably,
according to a new report by the Climate Council and property data firm
PropTrack.
Floods have collectively wiped $42.2bn from the value of Australian homes, the
report shows, in an analysis of more than two decades of property data.
It found the median value of a three-bed, two-bath home in a flood-prone zone
as of April 2025 was $75,000 less than a home without flood risks. For the 2m
flood-prone houses across Australia, at least 70% have had their values reduced
by flood risk.
Climate Councillor and economist Nicki Hutley, a co-author of the report, said
more than half of flood-prone properties were owned or rented by low-income
families. “Those are people for whom there is no choice but to take on that
[flood] risk,” she said. Climate risks were “exacerbating intergenerational
inequality” in Australia, Hutley added."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
