KEY POINTS:
Life, they say, is a beach. They also say the best things in life are free. But the truth is, a few million dollars can buy a style of beach life which is the envy of the world - and it's rapidly changing the way many New Zealanders
get away to it all.
Designer holiday homes offering a kind of luxury almost unheard of in this country a generation ago are popping up on sea and lake coastlines throughout New Zealand.
They may still be the preserve of the wealthy minority, but more and more New Zealanders - and foreign visitors - are buying into the lifestyle.
And one thing they have in common is very deep pockets.
"Some places in Queenstown are going for up around $6 or $7 million," said Mike Harper from Bayleys in Whitianga.
"One holiday home in Mt Maunganui sold recently for $8m. It was absolutely amazing, indoor heated swimming pool - everything.
"We are talking to people who have sold fairly substantial businesses and looking at retiring. They are very, very private and money is not really an object. They want a place where they can totally relax.
"We get a lot of people from the UK and US coming for six months a year. Some of them are semi-retired and operate businesses through the internet."
Harper has one property listed for just under $4m. The Bayleys website includes another at Omaru Bay, Waiheke, for almost $5m.
It features a private swimming beach, with two boat moorings and a sundrenched deck, half the length of a rugby field.
A coastal home in Wanganui, costing a mere $1.25m, offers prospective buyers the chance to "step directly from your lawn on to the 10th fairway for a spot of golf".
Another, beside Lake Taupo with a $1.79m price tag, features a thermal plunge pool on a private deck, a 20-metre heated pool and gymnasium and views of snow-capped mountains in Tongariro National Park.
"People are looking for special features," said Harper.
"Private beaches make a huge difference. These people expect quality - sound systems, security systems, swimming pools. It's top-end luxury."
But it's not only the extremely wealthy buying into the luxury holiday home lifestyle.
Harper said some ordinary New Zealanders were "mortgaging themselves" to get prestigious holiday homes, confident they were a good investment.
"Some people have huge money invested and they use them for six weeks a year."
Outside Coromandel, future hotspots for luxury holiday homes were Omaha and Northland, particularly Marsden Cove, said Harper.
For those who can't stretch to buying multimillion-dollar holiday bolt-holes, there are ways to experience a taste of the lifestyle by renting.
But even that's not cheap, even if it's only for a night.
Holidayhouses.co.nz offers a wide range of properties, including some in the luxury bracket such as Sandspit Retreat for $300-$400 a night, Lakeview lodge in Queenstown for $400-$700 a night, and The Opua House for $600-$800 a night.
Peter Miles, of AA Bookabach, which lists homes in Omaha and Bay of Islands for up to $500 a night, said the expectations of holidaymakers had risen enormously in recent years.
"Undoubtedly, as New Zealanders have become wealthier it has changed. There are some really stellar properties available.
"People tend to get together with other families, but some of these places, you have got to be pretty rich anyway to get them." Around 80 per cent of the company's clients were New Zealanders.
Miles said it had become more noticeable that people were willing to spend large sums of money to get a slice of the luxury lifestyle.
"It's a great deal of capital to have tied up in a place you get to five times a year. People tend to get those places as an outward sign of what they are."
Setting sail on dream house
It's a position most people would love to be in.
Diviana and Zen Brahmandi, originally from the United States, spent years cruising around the world before moving into their plush Mediterranean-style villa in Tairua, Coromandel.
But the call of the sea has persuaded them to offer it for sale at just under $4 million.
"We're just not land-lubbers," said Diviana.
"We can either sit here and enjoy this place and watch it all go by, or take another run at it before we sit down."
The couple made their money in property development, doing up homes in the United States before trading up to bigger and more expensive properties.
"Our timing was spot on," said Diviana. "It kept us mortgage free."
Eventually they bought a 20m catamaran and went cruising, arriving in New Zealand around 20 years ago.
Now in their 60s, the couple are getting itchy feet but have no plans to abandon New Zealand permanently. They have spent $200,000 on the Tairua property, expanding the master bedroom and swimming pool.
Diviana said it had been aligned on feng shui principles, and features tiles from India and Italy and a $65,000 audio system.
It also includes a 500-bottle wine cellar, a 21m pool and eight-person jacuzzi, 85,000 litres of water storage, a deep bore, a purification and filtration system and "plenty of cleared park-like land to land a helicopter or develop a guest cottage", according to the real estate agent's listing.
Diviana said: "If, for whatever reason, we didn't sell it, it wouldn't break our hearts."