- Entry-level houses in Cooks Beach have dropped below $1m, offering more buying opportunities.
- There are now more than 35 properties for sale in the town, compared to the low of five at market peak in 2022.
- Agents say it’s a great time to buy, with increased choice and lower interest rates.
Bach prices in one of New Zealand’s most popular holiday spots have dropped below $1 million – something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.
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Agents told OneRoof that buying conditions had improved dramatically in Cooks Beach, noting the surge in homes for sale in the Coromandel beach town.
They said listings were 10 times higher than at market peak in 2022, when desperate buyers were paying more than double the RV to secure a bach.
Harcourts agent Paulette Tainsh said those days were well and truly gone. She has about 20 properties listed for sale in Cooks Beach - about half the total available on OneRoof.
A three-bedroom home at 12 Captain Cook Road priced for sale at $895,000 is one of the cheapest properties for sale in Cooks Beach. Photo / Supplied
A large beachfront property on Captain Cook Road is one of the higher-end properties for sale in the town. Photo / Supplied
“Three years ago, you couldn’t find anything under $1m. So, if you were looking to buy, now would be the time to do so. It’s not going to last forever - as soon as listings start to come down, prices will firm up.”
A three-bedroom bach she had listed for sale at $895,000 could have easily fetched more than $1m during the boom, she told OneRoof. Another of her listings up for grabs has a price indication below its RV of $1.21m.
Tainsh said demand for properties at the mid to lower end of the market had started to shift. She believed buyers had a small window between now and September before the market crept up again.
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However, the town’s high-end properties, including the five-bedroom, two-bathroom beachfront property Tainsh has for sale at 85 Captain Cook Road, were proving harder to shift because the buyer pool was smaller.
Bayleys Coromandel general manager Shaun Paterson said while there had been a lift in overall listings numbers, there might be some specific factors behind the spike in the Coromandel.
A lot of the properties in the beach towns were luxury items and often the first to go when things got tight, he said. The closure of State Highway 25A between Kōpū and Hikuai in 2023 had also made it harder for people to get to Cooks Beach and Pauanui, which may have also added to a build-up in listings.
This three-bedroom, three-bathroom home on 899F Purangi Road has an asking price of $2.9m. Photo / Supplied
“It’s a great time to buy because I don’t think we are going to see further price reductions, and there’s a whole lot of choice,” he said.
Paterson pointed to a three-bedroom home at 3A Oyster Drive that had dropped almost $100,000 in price to $995,000 and a luxury three-bedroom home at 899F Purangi Road with a $2.9m price tag. He pointed out that a larger neighbouring property on Purangi Road had sold for $4.5m in 2022, exceeding the sellers’ expectations by more than $1.6m.
Richardsons agent Merv Gardiner agreed it had been impossible to buy anything in the town for less than $1m during the post-Covid boom, but buyers now had a lot of affordable options, including an entry-level, two-bedroom bach at 3 Rees Avenue that is inviting inquiries over $900,000.
He said it had taken some vendors time to come to terms with the changing market, but now that they had, some houses were starting to shift.
Gardiner said most of his buyers were from Auckland, followed by the Waikato and Bay of Plenty, and they wanted baches close to the white sandy beach.
“A lot of people just want a bach, they don’t want a flash home. They just want somewhere they can come down to and kick their shoes off.”
- Click here to find more properties for sale in Cooks Beach, in the Coromandel
