Clarks Beach on the Manukau Harbour used to be somewhere Aucklanders bought a bach, in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but it’s become a suburb of Auckland.
Kim-Maree Osborne, from Harcourts, arrived in the area, which is out past Kingseat to the south of the city, 22 years ago but says even then the baches were being taken over by permanent residents.
“By the time I got here in the late ‘90s it had only just started to become a place where people would live and work from.”
In the 1980s the ratio was still about 80% baches but 20 years later, she says, there’s probably only 1% of baches left, with 99% of people living there full-time and commuting to work.
Start your property search
While Clarks Beach has been growing in recent years, with substantial development having taken place, Covid has still had an impact, Osborne says.
Last year was the agency’s best year with people looking for a location where they could work from home, and for something affordable after being priced out of the Auckland market.
The old baches the area was known for have largely been bought up and renovated or removed and replaced by new houses.
But people still like to holiday at Clarks Beach and locals sometimes let their homes to Aucklanders who don’t want to battle traffic to get to the Coromandel, Osborne says.
Further along from Clarks Beach is the Awhitu Peninsula and here there is still very much a bach vibe, says Leonie Gillot of Harcourts.
Once thought a long way out, she says people from Auckland are looking at Awhitu for a holiday home instead of sitting on the motorway to the Coromandel on a weekend.
“We sold a bach to somebody from over the Shore and they said it’s just an hour down the road and if they are going to the Coromandel, they get stuck in traffic.”
There are about 750 baches on the peninsula, she says, but they are tightly held by families who tend to pass them down the generations.
- Find homes for sale at Clarks Beach here
