Auckland’s rich-lister playgrounds are home to the country’s most expensive beach homes.
Analysis of bach sales by OneRoof and its data partner Valocity found a swag of coastal properties on Waiheke Island and in Omaha that have sold for upwards of $7 million.
And agents spoken to by OneRoof believe that such is the demand for beach real estate in New Zealand at the top of the market, it won’t be long before we see sales of $20m and above.
The OneRoof-Valocity analysis looked at residential sales in more than 250 coastal locations around New Zealand.
Start your property search
It found an explosion in second home purchases in beach spots in the months after the first Covid lockdown was lifted, with Kiwis spending $14 billion on coastal property since June 2020.
The buying spree, fuelled by low interest rates and the closure of New Zealand borders, contributed to a huge lift in beach town property values, with house prices in some of the more popular locations rising by more than $500,000 post Covid.
The highest prices were paid for properties on Waiheke Island and Omaha, as well as Coromandel beach towns popular with wealthy Aucklanders.
Two luxury beach pads in Oneroa, on Waiheke Island, are top of the rankings with purchase prices of $10.25 million each.
One a Hamptons-inspired house on Ocean View Road, in Oneroa, sold in November last year while the other, a modern cliff-top estate on Alan Murray Lane, sold in June the same year.
The Bayleys agent who brokered the Ocean View Road deal, Mana Tahapehi, said that he had had serious interest in the property within days of it hitting the market. “This one pretty well ticked all the boxes,” he said.
The 1171sqm coastal property came with a three-bedroom 292sqm house and a two-bedroom guest house and was designed by Christian Anderson with interiors by designer Jen Pack.
Waiheke Homes co-owner Tobias Roebuck-Ward, who brokered the deal the striking modern house on 1.5 hectares on Alan Murray Lane, told OneRoof at the time of the sale that the property had been shown to a limited group of qualified buyers.
“We had three qualified buyers who we work with, we knew they had budgets of $8m to $10m, and since then we’ve had calls from two more who wanted to buy,” he said of the property.
Three other Waiheke “baches” made the top 10.
A three-bedroom Fearon Hay architect-designed house glass pavilion with a pool on Newton Road, between Oneroa and Sandy Bay, sold for $9m in April this year.
Sold in November 2021 for $10.25 million: Ocean View Road, Oneroa, Waiheke Island. Photo / Supplied
Sold in March 2021 for $9.1 million: Kutai Lane, Omaha, Auckland. Photo / Supplied
Kellands agent Charles Collins, who brokered the deal, said the owners had completely upgraded the landscaping on the 2032sqm site, adding a pool and freshening up the interiors since they bought the property five years ago for $6m.
A headline-catching three-bedroom home, known as Lantern House, was sold by the founders of the iconic Oyster Inn for $8.45m in March this year and a three-bedroom 259sqm house with its own private beach and beach shed sold for $8.225m in October last year in a deal brokered by Collins and Martin Dobson.
But Graham Wall of Wall Real Estate, who is currently marketing a beach-front place on Palm Beach that he thinks will fetch well over $10m, reckons Waiheke is still under-valued.
“To quote [economist] Cameron Bagrie, people have gone from having a bach on their bucket list, to their f***-it list. They’re saying ‘you only live once, f**k it, let’s do it’,” Wall said.
“This is the most valuable, the best investment in residential property in New Zealand – indeed all the southern hemisphere. Waiheke is ready to ‘pop’ again. It is a lot of money, but next time [some of those properties] will be for sale is in 30 years' time. So sometimes you have to pay next year’s prices this year.”
He added: "You cannot pay too much.”
On Auckland’s northern fringes, in the beach town of Omaha, wealthy buyers paid handsomely as shuffled their way closer to the sand post-Covid.
Sold in April 2022 for $9 million: Newton Road, Oneroa, Waiheke Island. Photo / Supplied
Sold in March 2022 for $8.45 million: Sea View Road, Ostend, Waiheke Island. Photo / Supplied
The record price so far for Omaha is $9.1m, paid in March for a four-bedroom luxury home on Kutai Lane, which included a heated pool, spa, a built-in bar and chilled wine cellar.
Precision real estate agent Di Balich, who brokered the deal, said that other buyers with budgets of around $8m missed out.
“Six months ago, they possibly would have got the house for that,” she told OneRoof at the time. Balich also brokered another March sale of a near-new waterfront house on Rita Way that fetched $7.625m for its overseas-bound vendors in an off-market deal.
“In hindsight, it was a really good buy, just before the market took off. Today it would be $1m more, at least,” Balich said.
She noted that buyers had been a little pickier in the lead up to summer and that properties were taking longer to sell, although people were still buying.
She felt that a $10m sale in Omaha was definitely possible.
“Everything would have to align – luxury, renovated up to current style, with good street appeal, not dated. Then all the latest automation for blinds, security, a heated pool – or room to put one in – a scullery, second living room, access for a big boat and good garaging,” she said, adding that Omaha buyers were very particular about beachfront and ease of access to water, but still wanted privacy.
“And that’s the challenge on Omaha beach.”
Some of Balich’s buyers are foregoing the beach to buy larger waterfront lifestyle properties that offer privacy. Balich sold a 4.4ha former orchard on waterfront Point Wells Road last summer for $12m to a family building a private compound.
Sold in October 2021 for $8.32 million: Inanga Lane, Omaha, Auckland. Photo / Supplied
Sold in October 2021 for $8.225 million: Sea View Road, Ostend, Waiheke Island. Photo / Supplied
Ray White agent Heather Walton inked the other three top Omaha deals that successively broke her own records, all on Inanga Lane. The $8.32m sale under the hammer in October last year of a Hamptons-style four-bedroom property bumped her $7.75m off-market sale just three weeks earlier for a five-bedroom waterfront property on the same street. That, in turn, had beaten her April figure of $7.375m for another five-bedroom home, this one designed by the award-winning Leuschke Group Architects in 2009.
Walton reckoned there could well be a $10m sale this summer, but noted that owners weren’t under pressure to sell on the open market. Many preferred agents to quietly let other high net worth buyers know that a house could be on the market, rather than go public.
Walton said that buyers in her patch often looked to build up a portfolio of holiday houses in the “golden triangle” of Omaha, Waiheke Island and Queenstown Lakes.
“They’re deciding which one they’ll end up living in permanently, so they’re doing the Omaha shuffle and the city shuffle – maybe selling up in Matakana to build in Arrowtown.”
Kellands Martin Dobson agreed that wealthy buyers were looking for beach homes that would eventually become their permanent residence.
Sold in August 2021 for $7.75 million: Inanga Lane, Omaha, Auckland. Photo / Supplied
“Beachfront and cliff top, definitely, but some are looking for a bigger piece of land with space for gardens, different views. Finding someone willing to sell is the thing,” he said.
“People just haven’t been able to buy – whether it’s $15m or $18m or even the $7m or $8m plus – because properties aren’t available to buy.”
New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty managing direct for Auckland and Waiheke Island Chris Jones said that while the market had changed, there was strong enquiry at the top of the market, and believed that a $20m “bach” sale was possible.
“But it’s very, very specific at that end. But maybe, we’ll see.
“Some are the same buyers from last summer who have not been satisfied. It’s such a small pool of properties and it won’t get bigger because of the restraints,” he said.
The company has two upper end properties that are getting strong interest from local buyers on the island, a luxury seven-bedroom Sumich Chaplin designed retreat on over 5 ha on 729 Orapiu Road, overlooking Omaru Bay and a pair of waterfront properties on Pikau Bay asking $5m and $7.5m for the land.
