Auckland buyers are snapping up coastal properties on the edge of the city as they create new post-Covid lifestyles.
Ray White agent Ross Hawkins, who has been marketing 150 residential sites on a 93ha spread on Weiti Bay, across the Okura Estuary from Long Bay on Auckland’s North Shore, says that after three months of lockdown, people are heading to the coast.
Just last week he achieved a record price for a pair of waterfront properties on 1922 sqm on Hibiscus Coast Highway, in Orewa.
While Hawkins was unable to disclose the exact sale price, OneRoof records show the properties had a combined CV of $6.7m.
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In the new subdivision at Weiti Bay, he sold seven properties within three days, for a total of $7m-plus. The new development has a gated entrance, beach walkway and a village centre starting in two years. “It’s really good value,” Hawkins says.
“It reminds me of when we started selling in Omaha 20 years ago. That’s what Weiti Bay will become.”
Hawkins says that many of the buyers there are thinking about building their ultimate property.
“These are people moving to the coast from Dairy Flat or Coatesville who want to get close to the water, and there are also Aucklanders moving out of town. Some of them will move out full time when they retire and still have a city place, but others will commute.”
House and land packages in a the gated Weiti Bay,on Auckland’s North Shore are selling for up to $5.9m. Photo / Supplied
Last week, he launched six home and land packages with prices ranging from $3.95m to $5.9m. At the top end of that price range, buyers get a luxury five bedroom, four-bath home with swimming pool, multiple living areas on a waterfront 1626sqm plot of land.
The developer’s architect and builder are carefully vetted, Hawkins says. “These are quality construction companies, some of the best. There is nothing worse than a busy construction company that pushes your job back.”
He added that the Weiti Bay on-ramp to the PenLink motorway, which will start in 2022 for completion in 2026, will make travel to the city a lot closer.
Half of the 29 blocks he is selling in The Reserve development, in Okura, have sold, for between $3.75m and $6.25m.
Waterfront properties in the area are tightly held and rarely come to market.
Kirsty Macky, owner and manager of the Bayleys Orewa branch, says the last true waterfront property that sold in Orewa was at the beginning of 2020, for $4.55m. “I can’t believe how Orewa has become a family suburb. In the past it was a place for empty nesters and retirees,” she says.
A three-bedroom house sold on Puriri Avenue for $1.525m. Photo / Supplied
“There are a massive number of North Shore people moving north from here, or people who now want to be close to the beach.”
She said units and granny-type flats - entry level for the suburb - are now selling for more than $1m, with dated 1980s and 1990s townhouses on half sites selling for $1.5 to $1.7m.
She cited a three-bedroom brick and tile home on Puriri Avenue that fetched $1.525 at auction in October, nearly $600,000 over its $970,000 CV.
Macky pins the surge in interest in the area to the development of the new northern subdivisions of Millwater and Milldale five or six years ago, but says Orewa has really taken off since the first lockdown in 2020.
“There’s the beach, the shops and cafes have a real vibe to them. And the kids are so safe, if they fall off their skateboard there are five people to pick them up. There’s a surf club, the skate park.
“People are being a bit more impetuous. We see the prices increasing and go ‘really?’ But if you’re selling in Auckland it’s cheaper here, a lovely big early 2000s home on the hill is still just $2m.”
OneRoof data shows that the suburb’s average property value has jumped $251,000 in the last year to $1.323m.
Macky says that suburbs further along the Whangaparoa Peninsula are getting their moment too, with townhouses in the region that sold a year ago for $900,000 are now fetching $1.2m.
“Sales in excess of $5m are not uncommon and there have been sales in excess of $10m this year. These are record-breaking.”
She says buyers are city people moving up permanently, ditching the city house and deciding they don’t need a second beach house but can live here year-round.
The shortage of properties mean auctions are being brought forward, such as that for a stylish three-bedroom house with a pool on Rosaria Crescent, which had a pre-auction offer within a two weeks of hitting the market.
