Some of New Zealand’s prime beach front real estate is never going to be yours – unless you were lucky enough to have grandparents smart enough to buy back in their youth.
“These are generational properties, bought by the granparents, they’ve never been sold,” says Whangamata Ray White real estate agent Trish Morrison, pointing to whole swathes of the beach town that were bought back when Whanga was subdivided by the Williamson family from an unfarmable lot of scruffy pine trees and sand.
“Then for a long, long time, the price of beach front land sat at $2 million. But we never saw the slump [of Auckland property] and prices continued to rise.”
Morrison and fellow agents in the town say that there is a real shortage of listings of beach front, so much so that agents say it is impossible to put a price on new listings. Even when they go to auction, she says, there are pre-auction offers as keen buyers know their market. Properties selling with a list price will often get multiple offers and sell higher than list, she says.
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She is selling a nearly new immaculately styled Hamptons-style house on the beach front half a block from the surf club, which the owner had bought sight unseen from a deceased estate six years ago. Another deceased estate in the same street, a corner beach-front property, passed down from the earliest owners, sold at auction this Saturday for $3.7 million.
Its CV was $3.25 million but Morrison says local agents laugh at Aucklanders trained to use that as at least a passing guide to a property’s likely sales value.
“It’s totally irrelevant here. We’ve had places go up to 80 percent above CV. They are due to be re-struck, but it’s just a rating mechanism.”
Morrison says that while buyers for beachfront are mostly out of towners, they generally have other property (or more than one) in the town and know the market well, and are all keen to upgrade to something better.
The waterfront Whangamata property, bought sight unseen a few years ago from a deceased estate, has a new architect-designed house and is one of only three properties for sale on the beach. Photo / supplied
Whangamata Real Estate agent Pete Sheppard, who with Chris Speedy marketed the $3.7 million property says that demand for beach front has been really strong in the town for at least a year, but there has been only one other for sale in the past two years. For two in the same street, and a third around the corner to be on the market at the same time is really unusual.
A deceased estate beach front house a few doors up from this Seaview Road property sold for $3.7m in the weekend. Photo / supplied
He achieved $3.05 m for a property in Winifred Avenue, but being closer to town centre and across the road to the beach, the 817 sq m site had extreme density zoning, likely for town houses or apartments.
“We’ve bucked the Auckland trend, a lot of people are moving here permanently. Onemana is still very buoyant, younger families are moving there because it’s really affordable.”
Both Sheppard and First National agent Gordon Turner, who has lived in the town since 1975, say the town has a serious issue now with lack of either affordable homes or rental properties for families or seasonal workers. The town’s geography, hemmed by hills and forestry, means there’s a shortage of affordable land for building.
“We’ve lost 60 percent of the rentals here, they’ve been sold off over the past three years,” says Turner. “But they are holiday houses, so those families are not in town spending, year round. The local businesses are feeling that.”
Turner says that was so quiet in the market, with few listings, that there’s real pent up demand now from buyers. He’s had properties sell in a couple of days, with multiple buyers pouncing and a recent auction achieved $80,000 more than the agent’s best estimate.
The waterfront buoyancy is not limited to the Coromandel Peninsula. Bayleys top Matakana agent Kellie Bissett, who covers not just the priciest parts of Omaha, but out to Leigh, Tauwharanui and Mahurangi, says that demand for waterfront hasn’t really stopped.
“There’s just constant demand,” she says. “But is there enough supply? There are always those that it has to be waterfront, nothing else will suffice. The last waterfront we had sold for $7.225 m back in March. When they come up, people are not waiting.”
Bissett says a waterfront property in Bayley’s October catalogue sold the day the book came out, with interest already in others. She too finds that the best waterfront stays generationally within families, so never comes onto the market or changes hands.
“Locals know the value of the area. They’ve already got a property, and have an appetite for more, they’re investing in more than one.”
Coastal delights
Here are two North Island beach front properties to get you excited about summer:
Wow at Whangamata
With a six year old beautifully Diana Blake-designed house, include separate guest house, close to the surf club and park.
Check out the listing below:
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Head to the heads
Beach front Parua Bay, in the McGregors hamlet, first time on the market in 45 years. Divided into two apartments, with two kitchens, extra kitchenettes and games room on 574 sq m.
Check out the listing below:
