The days of being able to buy a "hippy" starter home on Waiheke Island for under $1 million are over, with even modest properties away from the beach fetching close to $2m.
Bayleys agents Mandy and Holly Brown recently sold two worker cottages on the island for sums that would net a sprawling estate elsewhere in the country.
One, a two-bedroom renovated cottage on Fisher Street, in Surfdale, sold under the hammer for $1.5m, nearly twice its CV, while the other, a two-bedroom home on Matai Road, in Oneroa, fetched $1.9m after intense bidding from six buyers.
“You just can’t get anything under $1m. You’re looking at $1.3m as entry level,” Mandy told OneRoof.
Start your property search
“If something is under $1m, the chances are there is something wrong with it – it hasn’t got a code of compliance or there’s some kind of impediment.”
The Browns have just listed another two-bedroom home, on Waitai Road, in Ostend, and that has a guide price of $1.1m.
Mandy said the 20 qualified buyers who had inspected her Matai Road listing were all shopping with budgets of $1.5m to $2.5m.
Buyers who miss out on the last slated auctions for this year will have to wait until January before any new listings appear on the island, she said.
This 80sqm house on Junction Road in Oneroa goes to auction at the end of the month. Photo / Supplied
Waiheke Homes agent Tobias Roebuck-Ward, who has sold some of the island’s most expensive houses, will be hoping to catch some of those buyers when he brings a two-bedroom home on Junction Road, in Oneroa, to auction at the end of the month.
The sellers bought the 80sqm house in November last year for $1.11m and did a top-to-toe renovation, including putting in a new kitchen, bathroom and garden.
“You’re a seven-minute walk to Palm Beach, 15 minutes to Surfdale and 20 minutes to Oneroa. The market has moved in a year, but it’s a quality product and location,” he said.
He said the biggest buyer group on the island are “people moving from Auckland to make Waiheke their main home. There are competing in that $1.5m price bracket with buyers looking for a holiday home or second property.
He said buyers were “just more confident to spend more”.
Bayleys agent Mana Tahapehi tells a similar story. He marketed a tiny two-bedroom house on Queens Drive, Oneroa, that sold for $1.08m last week, well over its CV of $620,000.
“Aucklanders with equity in their home are buying up [on the island] now. You still find the odd hippy here, but every second person is an Aucklander these days.”
Homeowners on Waiheke Island have enjoyed some of Auckland's biggest gains since lockdown began. In the three months to November 15, Auckland's average property value rose 6.6%, while the nationwide property value rose 5.9%.
The pace of growth for properties on Waiheke was almost 9%, with all but one suburb on the island - Oneroa - recording jumps of between 10% and 13%. Oneroa's average property value moved just 5.9% over the three-month period, but it still sits at a high $2.3 million, just above the island's average property value of $2.03m.
Palm Beach recorded the island's biggest three-month gain - a whopping $239,000 - and is the third most expensive suburb for property on the island. The figures suggest buyers looking to get a foot on the island's property ladder would do best to target Omiha where the average property value sits at a relatively affordable $1.31m. The average property value in Ostend and Surfdale are all kicking towards $1.6m.
