Auction Targets Holiday Property Owners
Buyers at a forthcoming auction of Queen Charlotte Sounds properties could be spending their first summer in their new holiday homes with the timing of an auction planned to allow paper work to be done and dusted before Christmas.
Eight properties in the Queen Charlotte
Sounds area will go under the hammer at Bayleys
Marlborough’s special auction day on Sunday, November 22 -
with marketing agent and auctioneer, Glenn Dick, saying all
vendors are genuinely realistic about the changing market
and the effect this had had on their property
values.
“The properties range from one of the
cheapest sections available in the Sounds today, through to
good family baches and a couple of apartments in Picton –
gateway to the Sounds,” says Mr Dick.
Sections in
Spenser Bay and Double Cove, along with baches in Driftwood
Bay, Blackwood Bay, Onahau Bay and Burneys Beach (all with
shared jetties), will line up with two apartments in the
newly-redeveloped Oxleys Hotel complex. One section on Snake
Point has already sold prior to auction day.
Labour
Weekend officially marked the start of the summer season for
the Sounds, and with Marlborough and Canterbury Anniversary
weekends in November ahead of the countdown to Christmas, Mr
Dick says a small window of opportunity opened to bring a
selection of properties to the market to allow buyers to see
what their dollar can buy.
“We’ve come through a
long winter and a recessionary period and now it’s time to
find out where the market level is for properties in the
Sounds. It’s been pretty hard to know just where values
sit when the economy has been something of a moving
target,” says Mr Dick.
“By getting a room full of
potential buyers, and putting up properties across the price
spectrum, our vendors will get a good idea of where the
market is. And, buyers who have maybe dismissed the idea of
buying a holiday property in recent years may – in light
of the confidence that seems to be returning to the market
– be enticed back into looking again.”
In the last
nine months, REINZ statistics show that 24 properties in
total sold in the Marlborough Sounds and, of these, eight
were in Queen Charlotte Sound. Bayleys Marlborough concluded
six of these eight sales - giving them a 75 percent share of
the market with nine main real estate companies competing
for the business.
In January this year, Mr
Dick took an original Onahau Bay villa – which had been in
the same family for 150 years – through a high-profile
auction campaign and sold it under the hammer for $1.9
million to a Wairarapa family who, in time, intend to
restore the property.
As with that property, the
Sounds properties up for auction next month are only
accessible by boat, but are within 10-30 minutes boat ride
from the Picton or Waikawa Bay marinas where there is good
parking. Mr Dick says this is seen as a plus rather than a
negative for those he has sold Sounds properties
to.
“People like the escapism factor of the Sounds.
It’s a break from the realities of life and the fact that
you can only get to the property by sea, adds to that. For
those that don’t have their own boat, there are five water
taxi companies offering both scheduled and charter services,
so transport is not a problem,” says Mr Dick.
City
slickers who can’t quite abandon all of their urban
lifestyle rituals will be glad to know that the Queen
Charlotte Sounds boasts several quality resorts and lodges
for upmarket dining and an espresso fix, while those looking
to get back to basics will revel in the adventure
eco-tourism opportunities that the Sounds
sports.
Permanent residents in the Queen Charlotte
Sounds can organise for lawns and gardens to be tended for
absentee owners, there’s a mail boat delivery twice a
week, and a burgeoning holiday rental market for those
wishing to see some return on their property
investment.
“This area really is a playground,”
says Mr Dick. “I have sold many Sounds properties to
overseas buyers who just can’t believe the lifestyle that
the area offers and then there are the Kiwis who have
holidayed here for years and now realise that owning their
own property in the Sounds is
achievable.”
ENDS