An ex-pat Kiwi fighting eight other bidders paid $5.1 million at an auction on Saturday for a modest five-bedroom 1980s bach at Ferry Landing, across from Whitianga.
The multi-million dollar beachfront property on Bay View Place, on the sandy Front Beach, (Maramaratotara Bay),a few minutes west of Cooks Beach, had last changed hands in 1961 for £500 (about $122,000 in today’s dollars).
Richardsons Real Estate agent Penne Clayton said that her marketing campaign reached thousands of people, with three buyers trying to get a jump before the property was even listed and some 20-30 attending open homes.
“We had people looking from all around the world. It’s a unique property, there are only 13 places on this waterfront and the last one to sell was in December 2019 for $3.2m. They really don’t change hands,” she said.
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“Whitianga and Tairua had gone crazy, and now south – Cooks Beach, Hahei, Ferry Landing – are too. We had feedback around $4m, but there were two people on the phone really fighting it out. It was really exciting.”
Clayton said that the nine bidders from all around the North Island had one thing in common – an emotional connection to the area.
The owners' family bought the bach, one of only 13 on the waterfront near the ferry to Whitianga, in 1961 for £500. Photo / Supplied
“They grew up here or holidayed here as a kid. Today’s job is to find another one,” she said.
She said that the nearby town of Hahei, the closest spot to world famous Te Whanganui-a-hei, Cathedral Cove, usually commanded higher prices, with a property on Wigmore Crescent selling there for $4.05m in late 2018 and one on Margaret Place fetching $3.415m in October last year. But the rarity of the Bay View Place property drew a premium, with buyers ignoring its ratings valuation of $3.1m.
“People come into the office with photos of little baches on the waterfront they’d like to buy and are taken aback at the values. It’s the land values, not the bach.”
“At this level, people are not hung up at getting finance. These properties don’t come up very often, so they’re there with the money.”
The record for the Whitianga area was set in November for a luxurious four-bedroom 406sqm home on Waitotara Way in the sought-after waterways that sold at auction for $6.03m.
The property was bought by an ex-pat Kiwi who holidayed here in the past. Photo / Supplied
The striking home on a 903sqm section with its own pontoon and heated swimming pool attracted six bidders.
Bayleys agent Sheree Henderson, who marketed the property with Bev Calder, said that even though it was listed while Auckland was still in lockdown, a pre-auction offer brought forward the auction and bidders were competing for the home, which had a ratings valuation of just $1.97m.
“CVs don’t buy properties, they’re completely irrelevant here,” Henderson said. “We never get hung up on that, we look at comparable properties, if something is very tightly held and rarely comes to market.”
The eventual buyer was a local from Whitianga.
“There are only a couple [that] come up every year on the waterfront and there’s always a market for that – it's a different market because they’re not making any more,” said Henderson.
The record price for Whitianga is the $6.03m paid in November for a house on Waitotara Way on the Whitianga Waterways. Photo / Supplied
“Bidding got to around $4m to $4.5m but two guys just went on and on. It was a standout property and not every property will fetch that.”
Henderson and Calder are marketing two more luxurious properties on the waterfront that could attract those top end buyers: a five-bedroom 605sqm architect-designed house on a huge 1146sqm corner lot on the waterways at Lady Jocelyn Place with its own pontoon and garaging for four or five cars, and a four-bedroom fifteen-year-old glass and steel house on 909sqm on Arawa Lane, also with a pontoon and shares in a boat ramp.
The Coromandel Peninsula beach town record is currently held by a renovated four-bedroom home on the waterfront at Whangamata, which sold for $7.41m last winter to a neighbour.
One of the sons of the original Bay View Place owners at Ferry Landing said the property had been subdivided off the original dairy farm, which went right down to the water.
Another luxury Whitianga Waterways on Arawa Lane is one of two currently on the market. Photo / Supplied
“When my parents bought it there was no road and no services and we used to drive across paddocks to get to it,” the son said.
“My father paid £500, putting £50 down as a deposit and paying the balance 10 years later when title came through after the road was put in.”
The original pre-fabricated fibrolite bach was replaced about 25 years ago by a five-bedroom board-and-batten bach with a second living-dining-kitchenette and bunkroom space about five minutes’ walk from the ferry to Whitianga township.
- Additional reporting Sandra Goodwin
