An architect-designed house on a Waiheke Island headland that sold for $9 million in April is the biggest settled sale for the island for the year and the second biggest settled residential sale in Auckland so far this year.
That record will soon be eclipsed by a June deal of $9.15m for a large estate on Cable Bay, Waiheke, which is yet to settle.
But real estate agents have also sold some for under $1m – albeit old-school one-bedroom original baches – something the market hasn’t seen since well before November’s peak.
The three-bedroom glass pavilion and pool on Newton Road, between Oneroa and Sandy Bay, was listed in March and sold just a month later for $9m, well above its $6.5m ratings valuation.
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Kellands agent Charles Collins, who brokered the deal, said the owners had completely upgraded the landscaping of the Fearon Hay-designed house on a 2032sqm site ringed by pohutukawa trees, adding a pool and landscaping and freshening up the interiors since they bought the property five years ago for $6m.
Collins told OneRoof he still had buyers looking for special properties like this with budgets of $9m or $10m, or more.
In the five years since buying it for $6m, the owners added a pool, landscaping and updated the interior of the Oneroa clifftop home. Photo / Supplied
“At that level, buyers are quite specific in their requirements, a lot of people had just been sitting, waiting. Some people might have been looking for two or three years, there’s a shortage [at that level],” he said.
Bayleys agent Mana Tahapehi, who inked the $9.15m deal at the end of May for a six-bedroom 969sqm house on a 3.46ha property known as The Estate, on Church Bay Road, said that while the market had dropped, there were always off-market transactions across the upper bracket – albeit at a slower pace than during the heat of last year.
“It’s taking a little longer. We had multi-party offers a few weeks after the tender date, but to get $9m in a property that’s not waterfront, that’s good,” he said.
Tahapehi said the Mediterranean-style homestead between Mudbrick and Cable Bay wineries on Waiheke with a swimming pool and two luxury visitor studios, was pitched as an extended family compound or to refurbish back to an event venue or luxury accommodation as was originally built.
A luxury estate on Church Bay Road, Waiheke, sold at the end of May for $9.15m although the sale has not yet settled. Photo / Supplied
He said the interested buyers – one from overseas, one from Auckland and a local – fit the typical profile of the upper-end buyers shopping with $4m to $8m for an island property.
“I’d say there are more buyers entering the market at that bracket than any other, say $2m to $3m. They might have a house up north, or Queenstown or the city, they spend two or three days on the island, the rest in the city, or two or three months in each.
“Some buyers have been looking for one or two years. If it comes up, people will pay for it, they want it,” Tahapehi said, adding that a lack of supply keeps the number of top-end sales down.
“One or two of these sorts of properties every couple of months would be about the right balance.
“Ideally people want a completely finished product, with all the substantial infrastructure in place, the pool. No-one wants to go through consents and building for the next two or three years of their life, but owners are happy to do some renovations.”
The city’s top settled sale this year is $11m paid in February for a mansion in Remuera’s Victoria Avenue.
Chris Jones, New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty managing director for Auckland and Waiheke Island, whose company brokered the island’s top deal of $23.5m last year, said that upscale customers resuming their international travel after a two-year hiatus hasn’t had an impact on their buying island property.
Last year's top Waiheke sale was the $23.5m deal for billionaire Julian Robertson's 34-hectare estate on Kauaroa Bay. Photo / Supplied
“We had two years of an abnormal market, but we’re now back into a normal winter market. The qualified purchasers haven’t gone anywhere,” he said, adding that the company had some similarly priced high-end listings coming on the market through the winter.
“We're at the shoulder-tap phase, talking to qualified people and our international database, then they come on the market in spring.
“The key thing is there’s a limited supply on Waiheke.”
In December, NZ Sotheby’s International Realty agents Lisa Hopewell and Francine Sweet brokered the island’s top deal for $23.5m for the 34-hectare estate on Kauaroa Bay, on the southern side of the island, owned by American billionaire and luxury lodge operator Julian Robertson.
At the other end of the scale, an original bach on Palm Road, Palm Beach, Waiheke sold for $910,000. Photo / Supplied
At the time, Jay Robertson, who runs the family’s acclaimed lodges at Kauri Cliffs, The Farm at Cape Kidnappers and Matakauri (Queenstown), said the Covid-driven changes in international luxury travel prompted the sale. The family bought the property in 2018 for $19.5m. Jones could not disclose details of the buyers.
But bargains are still possible on Waiheke Island, says Paul Brisbane, co-owner of real estate agency Waiheke Homes – some even dropping to below $1m.
“We’re still getting buyers, but they’re taking a while to make decisions,” he said, adding off-market sales of $4m to $8m were happening “informally”.
A tidy two-bedroom bach with a studio on Totara Road, Ostend, sold for $1.215m. Photo / Supplied
Brisbane said while there are fewer investors – people who used AirBnB or rent out their second home as a bach – there was a pick up in family home buyers who, with new work-from-home regimes, could consider Waiheke for their permanent home.
“We did a sale in Onetangi for $1.12m over the last week, another listing on 29 Ocean Road, Surfdale (a one-bedroom bach) will probably go for around $900,000. There’s more chance of under $1m than there was back in November,” he said.
In March, Waiheke Homes sold an original one-bedroom bach on Palm Road, near Palm Beach, for $910,000 – below its $1.02m ratings valuation. The 80sqm 1940s bach sat on 1272sqm. Last month an immaculate two-bedroom bach with a studio on Totara Road, Onetangi, sold in less than a month. The original bach on 994sqm fetched $1.215m, more than $100,000 over its ratings valuation.
