The first offers for House Buybacks are being made by the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation (NRRC) and reports are that they are quite generous and on the upper end as noted by our last chat with CEO David Witherdin.

The Lismore App caught up with South Lismore resident Graham Askey who has received his buyback offer recently.

Graham and his wife Judy live on Frank Street, South Lismore in a raised house that has views of Leycester Creek. Graham jokes that Frank Street is one of the best-kept secrets in Lismore, "Where else do you have absolute water frontage for less than half a million dollars with a 5-minute walk to town?"

Graham and Judy's house had never had flood waters into the house before February 28 2022. Under the house, yes, but not into the main part of the house with a floor level of just over 13 metres. Graham has looked at Lismore City Council website and claims there are only 30 to 40 houses higher than his floor level in all of South and North Lismore.

Graham and Judy have a small loft area in the bathroom near the manhole cover that they took refuge in before being rescued off their verandah in 2022.

They have been living in their Frank Street home for quite some time following renovations to get it back to a habitable state once again. Some government money funds were used in the rebuild.

As to the NRRC House Buyback offer?

"It was more than I expected, quite a generous offer of $520,000. They were very rigorous in their assessment of prices and they topped it up with about $70,000 of what they call 'top up' money and that was to cover relocation costs. So the price was very fair."

"However, getting buybacks is problematical for owner occupiers in North and South Lismore because even if you get the price at the pre-COVID top market value, there's still not a lot of places you can go for that sort of money. Blocks of land in Goonellabah are going for $400,000."

"Investors would probably jump at it because they simply get their investment money back and go and invest somewhere else or they get their money back and go and buy two cheap houses in North and South Lismore, and then they'll get twice the rental income."

"Also for people our age, relocating would be more stressful than the prospect of any potential big flood." We can mention that Graham is in his mid-70s.

Graham has talked to his neighbours in Frank Street and the feeling is similar.

"They all say the same thing. They do not want to move, they have fixed their houses up. They don't want a buyback even though some of the houses haven't been raised."

(Some low-set houses in Frank Street, South Lismore)

As far as Graham knows, no other offer has been made to the owner-occupiers of Frank Street although some have been contacted.

Graham was told that all of Frank Street has been put in the red zone so you would think that all owners will be made a house buyback offer in the coming months.

Graham disputes that Frank Street should be classified as a red zone because there are only 30 properties in all of South and North Lismore that have a higher street level higher than Frank Street.

"This is what I question," Graham said, "Where are they getting their information from to classify us as being in the red zone? If we're in the red zone then every other single house in North and South Lismore will be in the red zone."

When we asked Graham if the escape routes could play a part in the classification, he replied "It is partly but once the flood reaches a certain point all of North and South Lismore is pretty much cut off, particularly South Lismore. North Lismore residents may still have an escape route up the Dunoon Road but in North and South, the escape routes get cut off fairly early. Everyone's the same though, there's no one that's better or worse off, they've all got to go over Ballina Street Bridge or Fawcett Bridge."

I put a hypothetical scenario to Graham.

What if you could buy a block of land that was affordable and the NRRC said you can relocate your home for the same price you have been offered so not out of pocket. Would you accept the offer?

"I would consider that as a second-best option and it would have to be on say, a bit of land that you carved out of the hillside just up the back of the showgrounds. So we still have the same amenities close to town and still have the same community."

"The concept of trying to depopulate North and South Lismore and spread them here, there and over the hills and far away, I think it's a bit silly. Because if retreat is your objective then it can't be just 133 or maybe 200 houses, it's got to be every house and every business and that would cost considerably more than what the present NRRC budget is. And then, would you apply this metric to every single town that's on a river in Australia, could not be done. Murray Watts said the same thing in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald a couple of weeks ago."

What about the threat of bigger floods more often? Are you worried about that prospect?

"We're less worried now. 28 February was an outlier. It was not a 500-year event as Witherdin said, it was a 2,500-year event. Our floor level is at the 500-year level. Anything less than 500 years doesn't worry us. We no longer have anything of value under the house, the 28 February flood fixed that up. And my previous fears when I was imagining what a really, really big flood would be like in Lismore, I was imagining many, many houses being pushed over but as it turned out, very few houses were pushed over and those that were most of them probably aren't in the red zone. No houses in Frank street were moved and most have just been done on in the old fashioned way, just sitting on pads on the ground or just simply on stumps."

"So, now I'm more confident that nothing much would happen to the house in a big flood and in any case, if we had better warning we wouldn't have been here and required a rescue."

Time will tell if Graham is now typical of what the thinking is in terms of moving out of the floodplain for those that have moved back into their homes and resuming a more normal life.

One of the big questions for government is, when another major flood hits Lismore and people didn't accept the House Buyback, will they be eligible for any sort of financial compensation?