Selling in the flood zone: ‘anticipating a big slowdown’

On a cold, dreary Saturday, dozens of volunteers are lined up near Fitzroy Harbour at a sand bagging station. The bags are for the residents of Moorhead Drive, where the Ottawa River has encircled many of the homes and cottages, and is sending shallow tributaries here and there to the other side of the Drive.

Which is what makes the sign so notable. There, jammed into the front lawn of 104 Moorhead is a realtor's sign that proclaims SOLD.

“That property, which was built in 2011, is a perfect example of how newer building codes can protect you,” says Mary Lou Donohue, the agent who sold the house, originally listed for $349,900. Donohue is a sales representative at Innovation Realty Ltd., where she specializes in properties along the Ottawa River from Arnprior to Kanata.

“Anything built in the last two decades will comply with MVCA (Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority) flood regulations,” she adds.

Those rules encompass a wide variety of safety features, mandating for example that entry points for utilities be either raised or sealed, that the underside of the floor closest to house openings be a least 0.3 metres above the 100-year flood level and that access to the residence be flood proofed to the same level.

As of Tuesday night, the Ottawa River was pouring across sections of Moorhead Drive, creating deepening ponds. Even so, the bungalow at 104 still appeared protected by a slim circle of sandbags. Outdoor furniture was stacked on a dry deck. The electricity was working.

Houses that incorporate up-todate flood proof features do a pretty good job of retaining their value, real estate agents agree, despite this region's history of floods.

But that doesn't make them easy to sell, Donohue has learned from a decade's worth of experience. “Nearly every property we show, people ask ‘How was it affected in the 2017 flood”?” she says. “The house on 104 Moorhead first went on the market last summer.”

Now, her gut instinct tells her, “we should anticipate a pretty big slowdown in these kinds of sales as people sort out the impact of this year's flood.”

The key, here, is location. Despite flood levels that are historic and the dislocation of thousands of residents, the number of homes in the capital region suffering serious to catastrophic flood damage is surprisingly small relative to the total.

The precise number of properties affected is impossible to estimate for now, though it will certainly exceed that of the 2017 flood. That one damaged more than 1,400 properties in Gatineau, along with 500 plus homes in West Carleton (which includes Constance Bay and Fitzroy Harbour) and hundreds more elsewhere on the Ontario side.

Now consider the bigger picture. According to the 2016 census, Ottawa has nearly 400,000 occupied dwellings while Gatineau supports about 140,000.

Assuming this year's flood causes twice as much damage as the 2017 event, this would mean less than 0.4 per cent of properties would be affected on the Ottawa side of the river and fully two per cent of residences in Gatineau.