Coromandel baches fetching big dollars

By WAYNE THOMPSON

Coromandel people call them the new gold mines.

They are quarter-acre (1000 sq m) house sites on pristine beaches, worth $600,000 to $1 million.

Nancy Bacchus, aged 86, lived in such a treasure at Kuaotunu, north of Whitianga. She bought the three-room fibrolite bach in 1976 for $30,000.

Last summer, when ill-health prevented her driving to town, her beloved pink bach, built in 1962, was sold for $614,000.

She now lives in Tauranga.

One of Mrs Bacchus' five children, Mark, said two families holidayed there over summer, with a tent, a boat and a boat shed used as sleeping quarters.

"The boat shed was a favourite because you could open its roll-up door and see the view from the bed."

His mother replaced the traditional long-drop with an inside flushing toilet in 1976 and made additions to the bach in three stages.

Mr Bacchus said the bach was on one of two sections subdivided and sold in 1962 for a total of £500 ($1000).

The Aucklander who won a lively bidding contest for the bach on an 1179 sq m site eight months ago has not changed it.

He wants his family to experience the type of basic beach camp life he grew up enjoying.

Agents consider he was lucky to find it.

"Places with an absolute beachfront are scarce, they are not making any more, and that drives up the price," said Mary Walker, Bayleys Real Estate manager in Whitianga.

Only about half a dozen properties are in that situation at Kuaotunu and rarely do they come up for sale.

But it is not the only beachside haven where little baches are fetching big dollars and prices have increased from the reasonable to the astronomical.

At neighbouring Whangapoua, a two-room fibrolite beachfront bach on 809 sq m sold for $800,000 the first day it was on the market.

The vendor had bought the bach just 18 months before for $625,000.



Some Whangapoua property owners have enjoyed up to a 817 per cent capital gain on their land values from 1988 to 2000.

Single unit beachfront land values have risen from $60,000 in 1988 to about $550,000.





At Whangamata, a 30-year-old fibrolite cottage on an 1108 sq m site, billed as "Sand on Your Doorstep", sold for $1 million.

A resident bought it before the auction, spurred on by competition from overseas inquiries, mostly expatriate New Zealanders.

A similar Whangamata property was bought in 1983 for $108,000, another in 1987 for $266,000 and another in 1988 for $350,000.

Mike Fowler, of Fowler Real Estate, says that at Waihi Beach six sites with old baches have sold this year at prices ranging from $385,000 to $420,000.