After a quiet winter, a trio of properties selling in the first couple of weeks of June in Omaha, Matakana and Point Wells is a sign that beach and lifestyle buyers are back.
Ray White business owner Heather Walton inked deals on a family home in Omaha, a near-new build in Point Wells and a section in Matakana’s main street this month, saying the “trifecta” signalled good news.
“There’s been some media to say we’ve hit the bottom. And there were definitely people waiting and waiting for it to hit the bottom,” Walton said.
“Now they’re starting to say ‘what if it takes off like it did in Covid and we’ve missed out’.”
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Walton said two families joining together to buy the two-storey, three-bedroom 1980s house on Meiklejohn Way, near the Omaha golf course, was good buying as it was elevated and had a downstairs studio that would work for teenagers.
While she couldn’t reveal the price on the property, which had a CV of $1.25m, she said it “sold for what it should have sold for in a down market, considerably more than CV.” She added a recent sale of a similar property a couple of blocks away for $500,000 over CV helped.
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The second sales was for a near-new home on Shearwater Lane, the up-scale estate on the edge of Point Wells, that fetched $2.725m under the hammer last week. That auction that had been brought forward, despite no pre-auction offers.
“One party looked at the house the day we listed, the other two days later, they were both keen and both going overseas, so it was beneficial to call it early,” she said of the bidders, one of whom was local, the other from Auckland.
Walton said that enquiry from city dwellers had already picked up, well before the traditional spring house hunting season.
“Big properties in Auckland are selling, so now they’re turning their eyes back to [high end] waterfront. That was their plan, but when Auckland high end paused so the waterfront paused,” she said.
She said her office is already in talks with vendors who are planning to start marketing their places in the traditional Labour Weekend start to the season, but are letting buyers on the waiting list get an early glimpse.
The June sale of the renovated three bedroom house with a studio bedroom below on Meiklejohn Lane, Omaha, signals the start of a pickup in the beach-side town. Photo / Supplied
The renovated three-bedroom plus studio house on Meiklejohn Lane, Omaha, was bought by two families as a joint holiday home. Photo / Supplied
“The buyers are wanting certain things, so if that [property] comes up, we jump to get them in.”
Walton said the brief from buyers had morphed from a beachfront home to places with more room so buyers can create a larger inter-generational estate. She said that as their grown-up kids start to have grandchildren, many buyers were keen on near-new-builds with modern features like double glazing and insulation, top kitchens, separate wings for the generations and room to spread out around a pool.
She said her Shearwater Lane buyers (the locals who won the auction) got a four-bedroom home on a quarter acre (1000sqm) section with a massive pool, and the option of driving to Omaha or Tawharanui beaches, all for under $3m.
“You can’t get that in Omaha. Even at the ‘new’ end the homes are coming up for 15 years old, and there’s not the same space.”
A near-new four-bedroom home on Shearwater Lane, in Point Wells, sold under the hammer for $2.725m after the auction was brought forward. Photo / Supplied
“People are getting in and getting cranking. We always say ‘just get here and then we’ll do the Omaha shuffle’.”
The third sale was for a 817sqm site on Matakana Valley Road. The land, which the vendors had bought three years ago for $820,000, had consents for two main dwellings and four holiday cottages. It has a CV of $1.05m, but Walton could not reveal the sale price to the buyer, who planned to land-bank.
Ray White agents Drew Miller and Dane Smuts are marketing a similar project on the next-door site, now completed and ready to move into. 35 Matakana Valley Road has a large main house and swimming pool, plus five holiday sheds, which can be bought individually or as a package.
Another Omaha agent, Precision’s Di Balich said that June’s market pick-up meant that properties that sat for months are now finding buyers.
“We’re paused for another growth spurt, although Omaha has never gone backwards. The market was at a trot, then a canter, now we’re waiting for the gallop in the market.”
As the market picks up, properties that were listed over summer, such as this one on Blue Bell Parade, Omaha, are now finding buyers. Photo / Supplied
This month she sold a three-bedroom 1980s house on Blue Bell Parade that had been listed since December, most recently asking for offers over $2.9m (it has a CV of $2.95m). She could not reveal the price.
“We’re starting to get interest, people are recognising the dynamics of the market are moving,” Balich said, adding that country lifestyle properties were as much in demand as those in suburban Omaha.
“Attendance at open homes is up, enquiries are up. It’s a mix of [buyers] who have been looking on and off since last summer and a lot of new people.
“They’re reading about interest rates stabilising. The motorway is up and running and saving 10 minutes off the drive, and the Matakana Pub people tell me they’ve been flat out.”
Like Walton, she is getting off-market listings for big properties where owners want to test the market before they go public in the spring, including a 7000sqm waterfront home with a pool and tennis court that “just needs a scrub up”.
“You can buy this for $6m, on the water, or maybe for the same money get something [on the water] in the old end of Omaha that needs work.”
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