A luxury bach on the beach at Palm Beach, on Auckland’s Waiheke Island, is offering a try-before-you-buy stay to buyers.
It was prompted by a fishing trip with a mate for Wall Real Estate agent Ollie Wall, where he came up with the novel tactic for the beach house he and father Graham Wall are marketing at 43 Palm Road, Palm Beach.
“I was saying to my mate that it’s sort of weird that the biggest decision you ever make – buying a house – you take after maybe two hours tops in the place,” Ollie Wall said.
“We’ve sold $20 million places where people have spent one hour looking at it. Why is that? It doesn’t make sense.”
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He said that while buying a villa on a particular street in Ponsonby is a pretty known quantity for city folk, experiencing a bach is a completely different head space – so needs different exposure.
“It’s house-buying for key forever memories for the family, it takes a bit more processing,” Wall said.
The bach on 1700sqm on Palm Beach, Waiheke Island, is one of the few waterfront properties on the island that doesn't have a road between the house and the sand. Photo / Supplied
"If you’ve never spent a night on Palm Beach, you may never know how special it is," he said, adding that, beyond winery day trips, many buyers are still new to the island so may not be familiar with particular beaches or neighbourhoods.
The Walls are convinced buyers will get it once they’ve stayed there, and already have a weekend booked at the Palm Beach house by a prospective client.
“You spend a night, get to know it and then you’ll do anything to get it because it is paradise. We can’t imagine it will still be waiting for a sale by Christmas.”
But there is a catch: the stay is only for highly qualified buyers, not just anyone. “You can’t just ring up and ask to stay,” Wall said.
The five-bedroom, architect-designed house, which is on a 1700sqm double section on the beachfront, has a CV of $9.3m but it is expected to sell for "north of $10m".
The bach opens directly on to the beach from a gate in the front lawn. Photo / Supplied
There is a generous cooks' kitchen. Photo / Supplied
As well as a designer kitchen and multiple living spaces, the property also features one of the vintage train carriages rescued from Parnell’s White Heron hotel before it was torn down, now repurposed as a sleepout. A gate at the bottom of the olive tree-lined lawn, opens directly on to Palm Beach, which is one of the few beaches on Waiheke Island that doesn't have a road between the houses and the sand.
Wall said that apart from the big lifestyle estates, absolute beachfront baches on the island rarely come to market, adding that the most recent sale on this stretch of Palm Beach was back to 2018, when a neighbouring property on 809sqm sold for $7.5m.
When it sells over $10m, the sale will be one of the top bach sale prices on the island. A cliff-top property on Ocean View Road, Oneroa fetched $10.25m last November, while a lifestyle property on 1.5ha on Alan Murray Lane sold for the same price in June 2021.
The sleepout is an old railway carriage that formerly featured in the Parnell's legendary White Heron Hotel. Photo / Supplied
The island record price still stands for an estate at 205 and 205a Church Bay Road at Te Rere Cove near Oneroa that the Walls sold in June 2019. At the time of the sale, they could not disclose the sum for the house, but Graham Wall said it was “way more than $10m.” Records show the 5ha vineyard block sold for $3.3m, but the price of the main property is not revealed.
Also in 2019, a Hamptons-style house in the exclusive gated Matiatia Estate, above the ferry terminal, sold for $9.3m, while in August 2020, Delamore Lodge, a luxury clifftop home that curves around the slopes above Owhanake Bay, sold for an undisclosed sale price, "close" to the asking price of $10m plus GST.
Last year, a 34-ha estate with a lodge on Kauaroa Bay, on the southern coast of the island, ear-marked to be the fourth luxury lodge in the Robertson family portfolio (they also own Kauri Cliffs, The Farm at Cape Kidnappers and Matakauri Lodge) sold in a private deal for over $20m.
