NOVAK NEWS - FLOOD & FIRE ZONE: WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN FOR MY PROPERTY? WITH STEVAN BUBALO & BIDHAN SHRESTHA

Have you ever considered how the threat of a rising tide could sweep away your property’s value? My colleague Stevan Bubalo joins me this week as we unravel the often underestimated influence of flood zones on real estate. We’re peeling back the layers of Sydney's recent rains to reveal their profound impact on properties once deemed secure. Stevan and I take you through the resourceful journey to determine if your dream home could be submerged in financial woes by using tools like the NSW Planning Portal, and we discuss the broader implications for those looking to buy, sell, or just stay afloat in the market. 

Narrabeen and other picturesque coastal suburbs serve as the backdrop for a deeper exploration into the challenges of building in flood-prone areas. From construction costs that seem to climb with the water levels to insurance premiums surging like the tides, we analyze what it really means to erect a home where nature asserts its power. We share vivid tales from properties where floodwaters left their mark, providing a stark canvas for understanding how such risks factor into the valuation and appeal of waterfront properties. Yet, through it all, we celebrate the resilient spirit of communities that embrace these elemental hazards, adding to the unique charm of living by the beautiful but sometimes tempestuous Australian coast.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Ladies and gentlemen, it is Monday evening, stevan Bubilo, with my colleague Vidan, we've got a very interesting topic Flood or fire?

Speaker 2: 0:09

Flood or fire.

Speaker 1: 0:12

What's it mean to your property?

Speaker 2: 0:31

Stay tuned, we're here it's Monday night, you and.

Speaker 1: 0:34

I.

Speaker 2: 0:35

We're not usually up here tonight together, but this is new for the first time, and it's good to share it with you.

Speaker 1: 0:44

So, ladies and gentlemen, tonight we've got a bit more of an interesting topic. We're going to steer away from what the market's doing, what's sold this week, what other real estate agents are saying, and we're going to talk about something that obviously Vedant and I both have just worked through. Vedant's got one coming up and also probably some of the news. What are we talking about tonight?

Speaker 2: 1:05

Badal Something water, like big, big rain that everyone in Sydney kind of experienced through the last weekend and I think flood is the main thing like things that were nowhere near water got underwater. So definitely talking about that and overall talking, how does it affect your property if you're buying or selling or renting, even?

Speaker 1: 1:25

How does flood affect you and how does all that water coming to your property affect you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's just like Stefan mentioned.

Speaker 2: 1:30

he's just been through a property that was in flood zone but had no very good result and pretty much had everyone asking, yeah, is it a flood zone? What happens then, and what's it mean?

Speaker 1: 1:40

Yeah, what does it mean?

Speaker 2: 1:41

So pretty much yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:43

So a lot of rain, obviously a lot of rain. On what day was that been? On friday, friday friday night.

Speaker 1: 1:48

Friday friday a lot of rain here on the northern beaches. Um, for those that are local, you, you all probably know we've got narrowing lakes or lagoon, got manly lagoon, um, so we've got some some pretty big catchment zones that catch water. For those that don't know, um, they are big catchment zones. They're not always open to the ocean, so they're sometimes closed and they're just part of the natural ecosystem through here. But we're going to talk about flood zoning and what that means to your property when you're buying, when you're selling, when you're building A few different things to look at.

Speaker 1: 2:24

So, um, like we don't mention, I've just recently sold a home that was in a flood zone here in north narrowbean, on the northern beaches. But then you've got one for sale right now in lagoon street lagoon street behind this, next to the lagoon yep, um, so they both back onto the narrowing lakes or narrowing lagoon, yeah, how you look at it. Um, and with this rain that's come through, um, it's obviously lifted the the water level in there. I didn't have any issues at the home I was selling, but you had a bit of a surprise on saturday a bit of water, whatever.

Speaker 2: 2:55

Yeah, see, a bit of water, uh, kind of it was. You know, if you want to enjoy the lifestyle being next to the lagoon, you kind of have to embrace a bit of water coming in when the big rainfall comes in there you didn't have any water actually into the property but onto the backyard, just under the backyard, which is very common, like you know, throughout places like places there were no one.

Speaker 2: 3:15

Your water got flooded, so a property that backs into the lagoon. Definitely some water comes up, yeah, if you. Uh, the water definitely rose up and it came to the property but you know nothing inside, no damage. The owners there were pretty normal. They were like, oh, this is once a year it happens, and they were pretty okay with it.

Speaker 1: 3:30

Yeah, yeah. So what happened is obviously, the water level came up when we're looking at these. And firstly, let me just say, if you're a Northern Beaches resident or not, you might be surprised to actually find out just how big of an impact zone a flood zone actually is. Because we're in dy, our office is here in dy, we're quite elevated, we're we're halfway up the hill into the next suburb, which is brookville. Where we are right now is a designated flood zone exactly. It's hard to believe. So the whole suburb of dy pretty much is falls under a flood zone here. Um, obviously, parts of narrabeen, north narrabeen, warrewood, coloroy, um mona veil, that's right.

Speaker 1: 4:12

Even further north, um, you know, kareel bay, avalon, these are areas that all fall under a flood zoning. So that's pushing north and even further south, and that's just on our northern beaches. So flood zoning is a very, very common thing and in australia, I mean, we're quite fortunate, we all live along the coastline um, it's something we're going to deal with. So, um, what's it mean? I mean, as if you're selling a property, what's it mean? Um, so the property I've recently sold was a house, went to auction, um, very an entry level home, I I'll say, for the Northern Beaches. So it had a lot of attention from both local and out of area buyers, and what I did find is that, well, firstly, I should step back.

Speaker 1: 4:59

How do you know if your property is in a flood zone or a property that you're looking at to buy is in a flood zone? There's a website you can go on. It's called the New South Wales Planning Portal. You can just Google that New South Wales Planning Portal, punch in your address and there's a few icons on the sides that you play around with. It will tell you if you're in a flood zone, if you're looking at buying a property at the back of your contract there is a zoning certificate from council, and that At the back of your contract there is a zoning certificate from council and that will also say whether or not the property is in a flood-related flood zone. So that's two ways to identify it. If you're looking at something but just say you are and you're a buyer and you're going to go look at these properties, we'll go back to the example. I just had a lot of people through the doors, those that were local, 95% of them couldn't care less.

Speaker 1: 5:44

They've seen it. They knew about it. It's happened before in the past. They know the worst-case scenarios and didn't bother them one bit.

Speaker 1: 5:52

But I found a lot of the buyers that were from out of area they basically thought the whole house was going to get swept away and you'd never see it again, which is not the case. But as a buyer you want to be careful. So I think, for if you're a purchaser and you're familiar with the property and you're familiar with flood zones and water levels in your area, it can actually be a bit of a bonus because sometimes keep the buy other buyers that maybe like the property but are fresh that's very true.

Speaker 2: 6:20

Actually you can use Induit Lounge if you are prepared. You know, once a year you know water might come up. So you kind of change away all the buyers that are scared and nervous and you kind of get a good bargain out of the property.

Speaker 1: 6:33

Yeah, it didn't happen on my own that one really worked yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:40

But it's a factor that people who aren't sure about it, you know, might not come and look or come and bid the flip side. If you're a seller, unfortunately you might see a reduction in numbers of the buyers coming through. But from our data and our statistics, the majority of people buying on the Northern Beaches are generally Northern Beaches people anyway, so they kind of know what's going to happen A little bit more with it. So what's it mean if you want to build a home, or okay, well, what's it mean if you're looking at a home? You want to identify firstly, has there been water in the property? Yeah, and that's what earlier?

Speaker 1: 7:13

I asked Bidan he had a flooded backyard at one of his townhouse complexes, but the water wasn't in.

Speaker 2: 7:20

Actually it wasn't in the. It's never been like it's been 30 years that it's been built, so water has never been in the actual property.

Speaker 1: 7:26

Yeah, so it might be in your backyard but it's not actually in the property. So that's one question you probably want to know as a buyer is does it actually impact the physical dwelling of the home and if it does, to what degree? I'll go back to the suburb of narrabeen, north narrabeen, just because I'm very familiar with it. Um, existing properties are fine, so if you're and when I say fine I mean it doesn't mean that you need to make any changes to those properties um, obviously, the lower set you are, the more susceptible you are to water. But where it changes is that if you build a home, you've actually got to lift the level of the property up and that's determined.

Speaker 1: 8:08

It changes area to area, but it's determined by a few different rating systems. One of them they call it the AHD I'm going to sound really boring it's the Australian Height Datum. Them, they call it the ahd. So it's I'm going to sound really boring this the australian height datum, and they basically take an average and they determine, you know to what height sea levels can go in your area. Pretty boring, but all the basic stuff, that is yeah, and then from that council will determine what we call a a floor level, I think a flood floor level. It's called an ffl and that'll be the height to which you build. So in Narrabeen, typically a lot of new homes that you'll see will be lifted anywhere from. You know, 1.2 to 1.4 meters Parking still on the ground floor, but the actual house, the level, will be a bit higher.

Speaker 2: 8:53

Yeah you'll a lot of stuff Done in a couple of days. I've had more experience, so you've got that building costs.

Speaker 1: 8:56

Obviously, if you're building in a new home in a flood zone, you're going to be lifting and there's going to be associated building costs with extra materials but you're going to know in the long term that you're going to be fine with it all. The only other costs that can be impacted? Well, I'm sure there's others, but another thing to be mindful of is that your insurance might be a little bit higher.

Speaker 2: 9:23

The access might be a bit higher when you're doing that. You know home and content insurance and all that. Yeah, it's better to be safe than sorry oh 100%. Pretty much. You never know what's going to happen.

Speaker 1: 9:42

So if you have living, in a flood zone. You're probably living in one of the best spots on the northern banks because you're going to be close to the water, um, literally, but it's, it's just part of living in australia, like I said earlier is what it is yeah, we all live by the water, so it it's very, very common.

Speaker 1: 9:58

There's building codes that you have to work with with council when you're building and there's methods around it. And I would say I've worked on a project as well where we've built homes. You probably don't want to go with I shouldn't say probably, but it's worth you investigating the builders that you're going to be building homes with. Sometimes, a very, very small boutique builder may not have experience with flood zones or fire zones or other things as well, and also, at the same time, some of the super large volume builders they're just there to turn over turn over those properties so they might not be as invested in maybe delivering the best fire.

Speaker 2: 10:37

You know five uh five proof or five proof time. So I guess, as a buyer, you kind of have to put yourself in the purchase and then ask is it in the flood zone? Yeah, like, what are the things that come to the location? Yeah, like, it's great, you get water views, you get access to the beach, you know. But, yeah, what does it bring? What are the negative sides? So I think, as a buyer, you kind of have to be careful with all that, I guess.

Speaker 1: 10:59

Yeah, but you want to know look, how high does it come. When did it last flood? How high was it then? And most of the northern beaches. Let's be honest, there's massive floods that are destroying homes. There's probably going to be less homes in those areas when you're shopping around, so if you're still going down a neighborhood street and everyone's got a house in there, it's a pretty good area. Yeah, definitely an area. Um, so that's kind of the flooding. How did you go put on on the weekend? Yeah, did you have many buyers out at your property? Walls of feedback, like when?

Speaker 2: 11:29

people saw the backyard. Yeah, definitely, we were kind of on the fence, like because the backyard was flooded and the first open wasn't like that, so it was still at the open. Oh, that was your first day, yeah, first open and we're so it was still the open.

Speaker 1: 11:37

Oh, that was your first open.

Speaker 2: 11:38

Yeah, first open and we're like, wait a minute. Like, if you look at the other side, the buyers will definitely ask is it in a flood zone? And what better way to actually show them if it floods, that's where it's going to come up. That's true, and we kind of had a fair bit of into the lagoon.

Speaker 2: 11:58

They're kind of prepared that the flood is going to be normal. So the feedback was like yeah, we kind of were prepared, so they were pretty much locals, so they knew what's going to happen, so it was positive feedback. It was a very well presented property so you know, two minutes to everything the beach, the shops, the schools so kind of people were like we love the location. Yeah, flood zone is something that we're okay to keep in consideration.

Speaker 1: 12:19

So, yeah, it went really well, surprisingly, oh good and like you said, as a buyer, it might not for many people get out in the shop when it's when it's pelting rain, but, um, it gives you that worst case scenario. You can see exactly where where it was up to.

Speaker 2: 12:33

Yeah, we did have a lot of a lot of rain. Yeah, that was a lot. Even the tunnel stations are flooded and there's no water nearby.

Speaker 1: 12:39

Yeah, I didn't think that's flood zone, but yeah, yeah, sydney, like Steph mentioned, there's water everywhere, so everywhere, if I do that another thing, also being a local on the beach, is here where we get localized flooding Narrabeen, north Narrabeen, those kind of areas it's generally because the lagoon is not open to the ocean, yeah, so when it's open it's draining a little bit easier, but that's a bit on the flooding side. While we're on it as well, we thought we might touch on some of the fire, the hot stuff Fire zone too. So again, being in Australia, you're either going to get flooded or you're going to get burned.

Speaker 1: 13:12

There's no in-between, you don't have much of a choice, but obviously a lot of people live near bushland or near reserves, which is very, very, very common across all of Sydney, particularly along the northern beaches, and there's similar risks associated with it. And again, I've worked on home developments that have had fire ratings with them. What I will say with the fire rating is that when you're looking at a property, it's going to have what we call a BAL rating, a bushfire attack level rating, and it basically determines heat, how close you are to the heat Embers. When there's a fire, can those sparks travel to you and obviously a flame, can a flame jump to the home, and the closer you are to those bushfires, you've got different rules that might apply when you build In today's property market.

Speaker 1: 14:05

Again, if you're already a well-established home, you probably don't need to apply by those same rules as a freshly built home would be. But you'd be smart too. Yeah, definitely, but essentially what I've learned with bushfire zones is that they may look to. It might cost you a little bit more to buy or build a home in there, just because the materials they want you to use are going to have better fire ratings Fireproof, I guess. Fireproofing gutters, fly screens, for instance, are usually metal as opposed to just plastic. Plastic Fireproof.

Speaker 1: 14:43

Fireproof. So they're going to be slightly different, as opposed to just plastic. What are they called Plastic Fagrated? Yeah, so they're going to be slightly different. There's tighter ceiling around windows and doors and things like that, thicker glass garage doors. So things that front onto the bushland have got different requirements around them, but again, a very, very common thing. On on the northern beaches we do get the odd bushfire. Well, I haven't seen a massive one since 1994.

Speaker 1: 15:10

it was a big one, big one probably when you were born no, it was a, it was a big, big bushfire that came through the northern beaches, but since then there hasn't been a lot. But council does still impose. If you're living near big green, you know, uh, pockets, that you will have some kind of bushfire zoning um around it with you. But the benefits again you're going to be living close to nature exactly. Birds, the trees look great, so it's good to die as well.

Speaker 2: 15:40

You get close to nature. Absolutely, yeah, and it's part of australia.

Speaker 1: 15:43

I yeah to say that again, it's just part of living in in this great country that these are the things we deal with yeah but for property prices.

Speaker 2: 15:52

Yeah, you kind of get a bug. And if you're in the area and you're prepared, they're kind of embrace, like I mentioned. Like if you're close to water, so that's gonna be there at some point. If you're close to Bush, to nature, bush fires are there. But, as always, safety is the first thing Building your house right. If it's already there, what else can you do, like going for more brick and metal rather than wood and timber.

Speaker 2: 16:13

That's easy to burn and applying all the measures like what are the possible fire threats or flood threats? Try to make it better.

Speaker 1: 16:21

Yeah, but the bottom line is usually, if you've got a water view or if you've got a bushland view, your home's going to be worth a little bit more, so there's a trade off to it. But the good things Australian building standards are always getting better and they're here to protect everybody out there. If you're a buyer and you see a home that you love and you're in a bushfire or a flood zone, find out how high those floods go. Find out when was the last bushfire, when was what happened? Yeah, and go and buy the home that you love. Yeah, definitely, it's just about asking the right questions, that's right.

Speaker 2: 16:54

Just have insurance and you'll be all right. Yeah, that's it, and do whatever you want.

Speaker 1: 16:58

That's it, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, thanks for joining us. Good to share. It was lovely and we'll be back again. If you have any questions, anything we can answer, not only about what we've talked about tonight property in general how's the market? We're here to help you, love to help you guys. Definitely All right, thank you. Have a good night. Cheers, guys. Thank.