Another business has opened in the CBD as shop-by-shop the block is starting to come back to life. Walk down Molesworth Street and you will see the bright yellow Raine & Horne sign. Peer through the window and you see an office space that oozes a touch of class with its treated bare brick walls, white curved couches and modern green lounge chair.

Brett McDonald is no stranger to real estate and no stranger to Raine & Horne as he worked for the company for three years without an office space.

"It seemed like a natural progression to take on my own business, be my own boss and open an office in Lismore. This town has been so incredibly good to me and supported me as an agent regardless of brand. So it makes sense to me to actually establish my own business and then be able to do it my own way and give back."

"I considered being out of the CBD and out of the flood zone, initially. I wondered whether maybe just renting a house somewhere up high, and just making that my office might work. But it was obvious that no one would know I was there and if they found out I was there would probably not care. I want to be here in the CBD because I want to be with everybody else. This CBD, for some reason, just has got it going on. It's a life and a community here and I wanted to be part of that and support the rebuild."

Looking through the window, you notice that this is not your typical real estate corporate office look and feel.

"It's not corporate looking and I'm glad that you said that because we didn't want it to be, we wanted it to be really welcoming. We wanted people to feel comfortable coming in and actually sitting down and being able to have a conversation with us and enjoy the space and not feel like it's a threatening office type of area."

(Brett McDonald in his new Molesworth Street office space)

As a lot of prospective new business owners have done in the winter months last year, Brett walked the CBD block looking at every shop as a potential opportunity to open his new office.

"There were lots of empty shops, and I got as far as the Strand Arcade and saw the Darkhorse had just opened and saw that the Strand had done a major refurb so quickly and got this building up and running very quickly in the piece. And I could just see the exposure of this frontage, the cafe is right there, it's a beautiful spot, a beautiful arcade and so tracked down the owner and here we are."

"We officially opened last Monday. We did it as quietly as we could because we've still got trades people coming in and out fitting up electricity and water and lighting and repairing doors and things like that, so that's all an ongoing thing."

What work has to be done before we see the finished product?

"There'll be more signage going up, displays in the windows, and hopefully some better lighting. Apart from that, we were already up and running as a business with properties on the market and showing them, so we're in selling mode and have been since the beginning of the year."

What's the latest on the real estate market? We have seen prices drop around the country, not as much in Lismore but still a drop in the last few months.

"It's really no different. Prices went up such a huge amount, as everybody knows over the COVID period sometimes more than fifty percent. A property I sold in James Street for $1.5 million saw a 50% increase in the COVID 18 months. So, some of that has scaled back but we're still not back to 2018 prices, we're only back to maybe sort of 2020 early '21 prices. There are still really strong numbers and people are buying here. There's plenty of buyers around but what the buyers are experiencing is more choice now. There are more properties on the market. So that means that they can negotiate sometimes on the price because they've got options."

"I've got people coming from everywhere. People are calling me about my listings, and they're from Broken Hill, Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, all over the countryside. They're moving to Lismore for their own reasons. I'm moving to Lismore because I've got a job, because my family are there, because I want to get out of the city, all sorts of reasons."

"That's no different to how it was and we use February 28 as a line in the sand. Often I'm asked by locals, if people still want them to move to Lismore? The floods have not changed that. It might have slowed it down for a little while, but it's just what it was before the flood. This is a great town, people love being here, people love living here, and there's so much happening here. The location is fantastic, the climate is fantastic. People love this place and they still come in here and the flood didn't change that, maybe only temporarily."

Like many other people, Brett cannot wait until the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation finalised its Resilient Lands options and begins constructing new housing blocks and potentially new suburbs of Lismore.

"Thank god, thank god. I don't know why, or who was sort of behind this but for years and years and years, there just seems to have been a lid on the development of appropriate land space in good locations at affordable prices. I know several developers and property owners who've tried to have their land subdivided and they're in infill spaces in Gonellabah, surrounded by other developments and have been stopped by the council from releasing the land."

"That's put added pressure on the market and meant that it's continued to be under supplied. So, thank god we've now got a supply that's on its way and people can have options and they can say whether they like that particular location and go and buy it if it suits them. So how exciting, Lismore grows. That's got to be good for the town if it's managed in a sustainable way.