On Waiheke Island, there is no one best beach, agents say, but the beaches wealthy holiday-makers like to buy in boil down to the following three: Oneroa, Palm Beach and Onetangi, all on the northern side of the island.
Older-style baches still dot the landscape but they are fast disappearing in favour of architecturally-designed holiday homes, and while absolute beachfront properties do not come to the market often the combined value of these exclusive front-row homes is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Despite the big prices paid, the expensive pads are dominated by high net worth owners who only use them a fraction of the year.
OneRoof’s data partner Valocity crunched the numbers and found the CVs for the beachfront properties along the three main beaches add up to a hefty $748,100,000 worth of real estate.
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But agents said that was an underestimate, with many properties selling for up to twice their CV.
Data: OneRoof / Valocity
Data: OneRoof / Valocity
The Valocity figures show the 10 properties considered beachfront in Palm Beach, which is in between Oneroa and Onetangi, are worth a combined $80m in CV value.
The 40 beachfront houses of Oneroa, which is the beach nearest to the ferry and village, come to a combined $249.7m of CV value, and the CVs of the 106 beachfront properties at Onetangi, the longest of the three beaches at the far end of the island, total $418.7m.
Data: OneRoof / Valocity
When houses up to 100 metres back from the beach are included, the CVs add up to a staggering $1,092,400,000 of real estate.
If older style baches in these locations do sell, as one on Beach Parade, in Oneroa, did in February for $6.2m, they tend not to remain a simple bach for long.
Bayleys agent Tricia Lafferty sold the Beach Parade bach with Kym Aikin and said the price fetched was for land value only.
The bach had been in the same family for 45 years and was sold by a vendor who now lives overseas.
Lafferty said the new owners were “lovely locals” with generational connections to the island.
She was not sure of their plans but said that in most cases baches like this would be removed and another house built.
Other potential buyers had multiple houses around the world, and wanted to buy in the location because it was near the village and ferry, she said.
“The people that I met when I was marketing 16 Beach Parade in particular love Oneroa beach because of its proximity to the village and transportation.”
Most beachfront homes do not have people in them year-round, she said, and while buyers do genuinely love the area, beachfront is also seen as a solid investment.
A family bach on Beach Parade, in Oneroa, was sold earlier this year by Bayleys agents Tricia Lafferty and Kym Aikin for $6.2m. Photo / Supplied
“They absolutely love the location, they want to buy there, but they are probably people who will use it a couple of months of the year.”
Waterfront properties often change hands off-market without the public knowing the property was for sale.
Lafferty said buyers tend to want a particular beach location on the island and are very specific about which one they want.
“Onetangi Is further afield but they can have the sea legs [boat] easily there. Palm Beach, probably the same. Oneroa beachfront has always been a bit more about being closer to the village and the ferry.”
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While beachfront is out of reach of many, Lafferty said Waiheke was a wonderful place to live and people do not have to be high net worth to live there.
“We still have batches under $1,000,000 here. For someone who is lucky enough to be able to afford a holiday home I think there is something for everyone.”
Lisa Hopewell, from New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty, said the three main white sand beaches were all in easy proximity to the restaurants and vineyards, but absolute beachfront was scarce because people hold on to the properties.
“They are legacy properties. They are so valuable, so they do tend to stay in families for a long time.”
Looking for buyers with $10m-plus to spend is this luxury estate at 209 Delamore Drive. Photo / Supplied
Sometimes buyers want a particular beach but they are usually flexible given there is not a lot of availability, she said.
“But it’s a small group of people – it’s high net worth – that would be buying in those locations.
“Most of them are bought as holiday homes, not as primary homes, hence the high net worth.”
Further back from the beach, the prices drop down to the next bracket of affordability but even the homes up to 100 metres back tend to be holiday homes, she said.
Hopewell is selling an Oneroa property that while not actually beachfront is on one of the newer “crème de la crème addresses” on the island, and is demonstrative of what is being built on the island for the holidays.
The property is on Delamore Drive, which is an exclusive enclave of lifestyle properties five minutes from Oneroa.
“It’s a headland. It’s a gated, private road. Some people do definitely want more privacy than being beachfront, and they want more land.”
This property on Onetangi Beach, sold off-market at the end of last year for $11.6m. Photo / Supplied
The price indication for the property, a “gorgeous” and “unique” architectural home, is $10m and up, but even at that level it is still likely to be a holiday home for a high net worth individual, Hopewell said.
“There are more high net worth individuals in New Zealand than people realise. You do need quite a lot of money, don’t you, to spend $10m on what may be a holiday home, or more.”
The CV on the property is $5.8m, but Hopewell said CVs were not reflective of prices paid: “It’s not unusual that properties transact for up to double CVs.”
Matthew Smith, from Ray White Waiheke, said there was no best beach on the island as that came down to personal preference, but he agreed Palm Beach, Oneroa and Onetangi as the premium ones.
Places like Surfdale, on the other side of the island, were nice with some lovely properties, but they were not in the same league, he said.
Valocity’s data showed the median value for Surfdale was around $1.1m compared to $8.2m for Palm Beach, $5.36m for Oneroa and $2.5m for Onetangi.
People who buy in Surfdale enjoyed more of the “old school” Waiheke feel, Smith said.
Palm Beach is home to some of the most expensive beachfront properties on Waiheke Island. Photo / Fiona Goodall
A vacant section on Third Avenue, in Onetangi, recently fetched $1.5m. Photo / Supplied
He recently sold two sections in Onetangi, the longest of the beaches, for the $1.5m mark, each of them worth more than Surfdale’s median property price.
One was on Quelch Road, a steep section a short walk to the beach, and the other, on Third Avenue, was marketed as the last large, flat site and about 150m back from the beach.
Though the sections fetched the same price, one did not have a view of the water while the other was a steep site and would be a complicated build.
“It was a trade-off for both. You pay a lot for development with the view or have a nice easy build but with no view. But both are [a] nice easy walk to the beach.”
Demand is high for anything that’s a close walk to the beach, Smith said, but a view of the bay brought demand no matter the value, be it at the lower end or at the very top end.
He did not see much differentiation between the beaches in terms of buyers, although said Palm Beach had attracted “a huge number of lawyers” over the last 25 years.
The sea legs was a factor in people’s decisions – in Palm Beach only absolute beachfront can use the boats, whereas Onetangi and Oneroa have roads between them and the sand and both have boat ramps so people can be one or two roads back and still motor down to the water.
But prices at the three beaches were all fairly similar, Smith said: “If you had the same house with the same view I think they’d all be the same.”
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