After a tough winter, the crowds are returning to Waiheke Island, hoping to grab a bargain while prices are still on their side.
They’ll have to be quick, though. A three-bedroom bach on Waiheke Road, Onetangi, sold this week for $1.62 million – $120,000 above its CV. The vendor had accepted a pre-auction offer within two weeks of putting the house on the market.
Listing agent Chris Jones, from New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty, said he brought 20 qualified buyers through the property, and got not one, but two pre-auction offers during its short time on the market.
He said most of the new properties for sale on the island were in the high $1ms to $4m price bracket, although buyers were still cautious. “There’s still a bit of a fear of over-paying,” he said.
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Colleague Francine Sweet agreed. “The prices aren’t surging, but there’s a creeping sense of new confidence. Four months ago, we’d be lucky if we got one online enquiry, but if I put up something in the lower end, I’m getting 10 to 15 enquiries immediately,” she said.
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At the higher end, she recently sold a renovated three-bedroom bach on Tiri View Road, above Palm Beach, for more than $2m. The price was a surprise to the vendors and Sweet herself. “But we mustn’t get too excited because as we know with Waiheke, things just slowly edge upwards. We’re not seeing that post-Covid surge,” she said.
Another early test of the spring lift will be her auction next month of 64 Hauraki Road. The vendors paid $2.11m for it in February but a change in circumstances has brought the three-bedroom house back to the market.
Sweet declined to say what it might sell for now, but highlighted that “favoured” properties with easy access and protected views were shifting.
The spring pickup could not come soon enough for some.
“The island’s been a ghost town,” Ray White Waiheke Island owner Matthew Smith said of the winter market. “It felt worse than the GFC, that’s for sure.”
A 1970s bach at 40 Korora Road, Oneroa, is on the market for the first time in 40 years. Photo / Supplied
Smith said the lift in new listings had helped bring more buyers to the island, although he expects the crowds to come out in force from Labour Weekend. He has listed four new properties in the last seven days, and intends to take them to auction in early November.
One is a three-bedroom 1970s bach at 40 Korora Road, in Oneroa. It is on the market for the first time in 40 years and comes with views of the bay, a track to the beach and a near-flat 1773sqm site, which would suit buyers planning a new build.
The CV is $4.5m, but Smith said “people are seeing it for upwards of $3m”.
Bayleys Waiheke manager Mark Spitz said his agents were starting to see good numbers at their open homes.
“The island has been very busy the last couple of weekends. People come over specifically to look at property. We see them coming off the ferry. They’re doing their homework.”
A plot of land with resource and building consents for an architect-designed house at 14 Huruhi Road, Oneroa, has an asking price of $495,000. Photo / Supplied
A three-bedroom house at 64 Hauraki Road goes to auction on November 2, just seven months after the owners paid $2.11m for it. Photo / Supplied
Spitz said that some properties had been getting 10 to 15 groups through open homes over a weekend, with buyers targeting homes in the sub-$1.5m bracket.
The cheapest properties on the island are found in the more than two dozen plots of land for sale on the south side of the island, not far from Orapiu Wharf, with one 2534sqm lot at 59 Anzac Road seeking $320,000.
On the other side of the island, Bayleys agent Mana Tahapehi has a 990sqm section at 14 Huruhi Road, in Oneroa, with an asking price of $495,000. It comes with resource and building consents for a three-bedroom home by architect Oli Booth.
- Click here to find more properties for sale on Waiheke Island
