It must rank as one of the cheapest pieces of land so close to Brisbane’s CBD, but this 714-square-metre block comes with a weather warning.
Ray White Annerley property consultant Bevin Powell says the land is good value but sits in Rocklea’s well-known flood zone.
“It has had about two metres of water over it during flooding events,” Powell says. “But for a 700-square-metre block close to the city, it’s pretty good value.
“If you’re in Rocklea, you’re going to get wet in a flood. If you’re sneezing in Rocklea, you get wet.”
According to Brisbane City Council flood maps, almost the entire suburb is at some risk of flooding.
However, “after it was featured on a local Brisbane property website, I received an enquiry from a buyer I hadn’t heard from in five years, and it sold fairly quickly after that”, he says.
Despite the city suffering major floods in the past 50 years, including 1974, 2011 and 2022, Powell says the property is zoned residential, and it is feasible to build a house on it sometime in the future.
“You could build up on stilts,” he says. “There are examples nearby where houses have been raised about two metres.
“You could also relocate an older house onto the site and elevate it.”
Many home owners across Rocklea have chosen to raise their homes after the devastating 2022 floods.
A low-set 1950s home at 15 Corella Street, Rocklea, sold for $848,000 earlier this year after being lifted on steel stilts high above the flood zone. It had changed hands for $370,000 five years earlier.
Powell says he is not aware if a house has previously been located on the Granard Road property. “The block had been inherited through the owner’s family and was mainly used as a storage site previously,” he says.
The buyer is a landscaper who plans to store material there.
Rocklea best known for being home to the city’s fruit and vegetable produce market.
Originally known as Rocky Waterholes Creek, it developed as a largely industrial suburb during World War II and was the site of a major munitions factory.
The produce market opened in 1964 and has itself been the victim of a series of floods. In both 2011 and 2022, tonnes of fresh produce had to be destroyed after flooding inundated the site.
According to the September Domain House Price Report, median house prices in the Australian Bureau of Statistic’s Acacia Ridge-Rocklea area, which includes Rocklea, Parkinson, Acacia Ridge and Algester, have increased 19.9 per cent to $1.175 million over the past 12 months.
According to Domain data, Rocklea has a large proportion of rental properties – 46 per cent compared to 54 per cent owner-occupiers. It has a population of 1592 people.
Glen Norris is an experienced journalist and editor with a career spanning four decades across Asia, Australia and Europe. His roles have included stints at Bloomberg News and Asian Wall Street Journal.
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