Lismore is a remarkable part of the world. This local government area encompasses vibrant villages, a university, the remnants of the Big Scrub, great markets, a large artistic community, Australia’s oldest dairy cooperative, a major hospital and multiple, diverse industries. Built when the river was the highway, it’s famous for floods, the Aquarius Festival, and staving off the people who wanted to frack the area for unconventional gas.
In terms of real estate, the greater Lismore LGA is not without its challenges, but for well-known local real estate agents, Katrina Beohm and John Wilcox, this verdant place still more than lives up to its title as the centre of the rainbow region.
Support and love
Katrina grew up just outside Lismore, in a rural community. She’s been in the real estate game locally for 23 years, and has seen her share of floods, as well as the resilience of the community.
‘I think it’s getting back to some sort of normal,’ she said. ‘There are still barricades up around empty houses that have been devastated by the flood. That’s such a sad thing.
‘Driving around, you see rows of houses that are part of the buyback program. And those people have moved out of the immediate area. They’ve already started their lives somewhere else.’
Katrina thinks the Lismore of the future will have more green space, but less built history. ‘Still, there’s over 75 per cent of Lismore that’s been rebuilt already.’ She remains inspired by the community response, with the great majority of people helping one another. ‘Wow, yes, that was really powerful. Just all the support and the love.’
Living the dream
Long term Nimbin-based agent John Wilcox has seen some flood-affected residents moving out to his part of the Lismore LGA, along with an influx of buyers from parts north and east. He says there’s been great demand recently from the Gold Coast and Brisbane, as well as from Mullumbimby and Byron Bay, as Airbnb and other factors crowd out families near the coast.
‘We had a big boom with Covid,’ John remembers, with people looking for land, space and functional community. He says the current market has stabilised at about 10 per cent below that peak, with rising interest rates doing little to affect the situation, as people are mostly selling properties in other areas, rather than being borrowers.
John says buyers are more interested in technology than they once were. ‘Yes, they want to be close to town for the kids, and make sure they have good internet access. Years ago, they were more interested in getting out in a forest with a waterfall.
‘Nimbin’s had quite a lot of development too. A lot of our blocks have been sold to people out of Lismore that were affected by the flood. So they’re on the buyback system, looking at higher ground to relocate houses or build new ones. That’s been good for villages around the place, like Dunoon and Nimbin.’
New opportunities
Katrina Beohm said one silver lining of the 2022 floods was the subsequent assistance from government, which hadn’t happened before in the same way. For many in the ‘beautiful community’ of North Lismore, it was just another flood, although higher, and they got on with their recovery quickly. For some newer home owners, the situation was complicated by Covid, which had brought many tree-changers to Lismore, only to face massive changes to property values after the floods, within days in some cases.
She said that while the market had been heading out of reach, particularly for first home buyers, there were now new opportunities for creative people prepared to work with the situation and make changes to homes to make them flood safe.
Katrina said buyback money was also driving purchases in new estates on higher ground in Goonellabah, ‘keeping that end of the market quite steady’, with others moving further out of town, to regional towns and villages, but still within reach of Lismore for work and study.
Tall timber, fast water
With solid progress being made on fixing rural roads damaged by landslides around Nimbin and the other villages, along with other infrastructure, John Wilcox says the tourists are back and more people are looking to buy a piece of paradise.
He says the natural advantages of the area remain a strong attraction, with the classic tall forests, babbling brooks and big mountains around Nimbin and The Channon all continuing to draw people in.
John believes the old battles between traditional farmers and ‘alternatives’ have receded into history, now that fifty years have passed since the Aquarius Festival upended the region. ‘A lot of the traditional farming people’s children have married the kids of parents who were new settlers,’ he said. Now the children of both tribes are mingling into ‘a lovely fruit salad of people and culture’.
While some of the latest settlers have a bit more money, and look more conservative than the Nimbinites of yesteryear, John Wilcox suggests many of them are ‘closet greenies’.
‘They’re looking for a better life that’s not so driven by things like traffic, shopping and materialism,’ he said. ‘Although everyone’s a bit materialistic when they want to buy or sell real estate!’ Still, it’s nice to think there’s still a couple of places where status isn’t just driven by how much money you’ve got.’
Optimistic
Katrina Beohm says she’s very optimistic about Lismore’s future, giving the example of the Workers’ Club coming back bigger and better in 2024. She says the Norco ice cream factory rebuild has also been a great confidence boost for the city.
‘Having our three large industries keeps the town together. Lismore Base Hospital and the university are super-important, but rebuilding Norco means that we’re very strong. That gives everyone hope.’
As is also the case with John Wilcox’s agency Nimbin Hills Real Estate (now also Hills2Coast), Katrina Beohm’s real estate business is expanding in all directions. As well as her Lismore base, she has offices in Byron Bay and Ballina, showing the increasing interconnections of people and businesses across the Northern Rivers, with Lismore right at the centre, just like the good old days.
As more local businesses reopen, the region is finding new life, and attracting new people, which is bringing its own challenges, particularly in terms of water and road infrastructure; as a series of loosely linked villages starts to look and feel more like a city, all in the midst of a major biodiversity hotspot which attracted many of the newcomers in the first place, including important pockets of World Heritage.
So what does the future hold for local real estate?
John Wilcox says he thinks the market will remain fairly stable for the next year or so. ‘The prices of real estate in Sydney and Melbourne are pretty buoyant at the moment, and eventually that money will filter up to here.’
He says new immigrants tend to go to the cities when they arrive, and an increasing number of people living in cities tend to want to escape, sooner or later. ‘So then they come up to places like the North Coast; they come to the beach, or to these areas. That’s how the money gets funnelled around.’
So people who are thinking of investing in the Northern Rivers or moving here – who might have seen the disasters on TV – what would you say to them? ‘Well, I know we’ve had all the floods and things, but we still have the best beaches up here,’ says John. ‘We still have the most beautiful rainforest up here. Those basic things haven’t changed.
‘So I feel that given a year or two we will be back to a more firm and buoyant market. The markets up in the Gold Coast are on fire at the moment, and that’s fuelling the interest down here.’
Liveability
Apart from the financial aspect, the strength of community across the Northern Rivers, particularly in Lismore and its villages, remains a potent draw for many potential buyers, in contrast to heavily populated areas like the Gold Coast.
John Wilcox agrees that this is a precious part of the local allure. ‘If you live in a area like Nimbin, you don’t need a car,’ he said. ‘You can walk and meet like-minded people. If you’re interested in arts and crafts, there’s people to talk to and things to do. It’s more relaxed here. You can be friends, and you don’t need a BMW!’
It sounds like your passion for the area is undimmed after all these years? ‘Yeah, that’s right. Well, I’ve been an agent for 40 years. When we started, it was myself and a secretary. And I think there’s nine people work here now. We’re a female dominated office.’
Is that the secret of your success? ‘That’s it mate!’
With more people round the world living in cities than ever before, and the natural environment becoming increasingly squeezed, things like abundant water, intact forests, healthy soil, farmers’ markets and cohesive communities are only going to become more valuable as time passes. It’s not hard to see why it will take more than floods to scare people away from the beautiful Lismore region.
The area has a long history of being loved by its caretakers, the Widjabul Wia-bal people, and the whitefellas who named it Lismore were also on to something, in spite of building the city in the most flood-prone place imaginable. In Gaelic, Lismore means ‘the great garden’, and it remains a bountiful place for the people lucky enough to live here.
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