Streetwise owners enjoy $1m view

Ask Highland Lass Pl resident Jean why her road is the most expensive in Whangarei and she smiles, looks around and waves her arm towards the spectacular, panoramic ocean views.
Jean and her husband, who do not want their real names used, are two of the few permanent residents in the Langs Beach road and neighbouring Gazelle Way.
The two roads are in the top 10 most expensive streets in Northland.
QV figures released to the Northern Advocate show that there are 14 residential streets in Northland where the median capital valuation is more than
$1 million out of a total of 535 nationally.
Ten of the streets are in the Far North, but those valuations were done in 2007, meaning they are likely to drop in value when revalued in July this year. One is in the Kaipara, which was valued in 2008 and is to be revalued in 2011.
The Whangarei properties were valued last year and are the most relevant in the north, QV says.
Jean and her husband bought in Highland Lass Pl about 13 years ago after finding the "beautiful spot".
Her husband used to camp at nearby Waipu Cove when he was younger.
"There was only a few houses here then so we bought the section and built our home and the houses grew up around that," she said.
"As people came here on holiday they fell in love with the place and a lot of the people that were the first buyers were from Auckland. They sold up the big house there, built here and kept an apartment in the city."
Many of the luxury houses in the two streets, coming off Hector Lang Dr - which itself has a median CV of $990,000 - are holiday homes and Jean is not surprised the street has such a high value.
"There are some fairly substantial houses here. You can't just put a caravan or tent on the section, you have to build an architecturally-designed home and submit the plans."

 So what makes the road so expensive?
"The views, it's a great community, access to the beach, it's a nice, peaceful, quiet place to live, it's only an hour and half from Auckland. It's a wonderful place to live."
Christine Birss, from Bayleys Realty, who has sold many of the homes in Highland Lass Pl, Gazelle Way and Hector Lang Dr, said CVs bore little relevance to the actual value of properties in the area and pointed out that Hector Lang Dr had properties worth more than the other two streets.
"I've been working in this area for seven years and the top sales have been in Hector Lang Dr. Most recently, in Hector Lang Dr, a beachfront property sold for $3.225 million in 2008, while I sold another beachfront property for $5.2 million in 2006."
 
 However, Hector Lang Dr had a relatively large number of empty sections, worth around $400,000 each, that brought the median CV down.
She has a four-bedroom, four-bathroom four-car garaging home in Gazelle Way on the market now for $1.295 million.
"People don't ask for the CV of properties because they don't bear a lot of relevance to the actual sale price," she said.
"They don't take much notice of the CV  and what most people are interested in is what the recent sale prices in the area were."
Ms Birss said all three streets had attractions that made them ideal for buyers with enough money to afford them.
"They have the views, access to the beach without having to cross a road, they are northwest facing, it's quite a sheltered cove so doesn't get strong winds ... the list is endless."