Nearly as far north as you can go – about 20 minutes’ drive to Cape Reinga at the top of the country – is New Zealand’s most northerly residential listing.
6894 Far North Road in tiny Te Kao is a six-bedroom, six-bathroom concrete block house being run single-handedly as a lodge, and it’s on the market for $485,000.
The listing agent, Keri Hokai, from Ray White Far North Circle, says the property, to the north of Pukenui and Houhora, is a rarity.
“It’s probably one of the very few properties that are in a European title in that area because it’s a very high concentration of Maori land,” she said.
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“Te Kao is like the last main settlement north before the turn off to Te Hapua.”
There’s a general store, an area school up to Year 13, a health clinic, a rugby club, a small settlement and hardly any traffic, Hokai says.
“It's a very whanau-orientated little community and there's a marae as well.”
On State Highway 1, Te Kao is between two coasts and it hardly takes any time to get to either side, she says.
The owner of 6894 Far North Road has been running the lodge through Booking.com but also often gets travellers who hadn’t realised quite how far north the Far North is.
“It’s kind of like you drive past and you go ‘oh, there's accommodation’ and she gets quite a lot of people dropping in,” Hokai says.
“She also gets people who come home for tangi.”
6894 Far North Road in Te Kao, Far North, has a price tag of $485,000. Photo / Supplied
Hokai says a buyer could carry on with the lodge as a small business but it would also lend itself to a group of people going in together and using it as a base as there’s easy access to “incredible places” like Ninety Mile Beach, the Parengarenga Harbour and Cape Reinga.
Hokai, who is based in Kaitaia, describes herself as the busiest agent in the Far North and says while she has plenty of listings, the market is changing. “We're definitely seeing a decline in the number of buyers actively looking, but properties are still selling,” she says.
After Covid arrived in the country, life was busy with people relocating to the Far North for lifestyle choices, and that hasn’t changed but it has waned.
“We had a massive wave after the first lockdown and that continued for a good year and it sort of slowed up a little bit but it's now just a constant trickle.
“I would say every day we're getting calls from people choosing lifestyle.”
Initially, people who had connections to the Far North were coming back but now people from all over the country google to see where their money is best spent, and also people who want a warmer climate.
Ninety Mile Beach is one of the highlights of the Far North. Photo / Getty Images
“There’s been a real shift I think in people's lifestyle choices and a lot of people are now working from home so they want to know there's good Internet and they are able to come to places like this and buy cheaper and choose lifestyle,” she says.
“Up here we have really great weather and really affordable properties and they haven't even spent much time here but they are making choices solely based on price and what they see.”
Hokai says while there are still plenty of Aucklanders looking to the Far North, there are also people from south of the Bombays, from areas like Whanganui, Hawkes Bay and Te Awamutu.
“A lot of Aucklanders think ‘I'm getting out of the city because of the rat race’ but all these other people just want to be where it’s warm and they say ‘we're thinking of moving north because the weather is nice.’”
The Te Kao lodge has seen sporadic interest but has not yet found the right buyer: “The right buyer is going to walk in and say ‘I'm in love with this place, this is my ultimate lifestyle.’”
Hokai has plenty else on offer in the Far North, such as 3 Karawaka Street, in Ahipara, which she describes as a modern home with a beach lifestyle, which is on the market by negotiation.
A 1950s weatherboard in Kaitaia, at 16 Archibald Street, is on for $389,000 and features three bedrooms and a large section, and Hokai says the property would rent for just under $500 a week.
About 20 minutes south of Te Kao and an hour from Kaitaia is Pukenui, which Hokai describes as a lifestyle destination more like the Remuera of the North.
Sean Stratton, Ray White principal and partner, has a number of properties on offer at Pukenui but he also says the market has slowed.
This three bedroom home at 3 Karawaka Street, in Ahipara, is close to the coast. Photo / Supplied
A three-bedroom home at 16 Archibald Street, in Kaitaia, is priced at $389,000. Photo / Supplied
“We’ve certainly seen volumes are down overall in terms of sales numbers compared to last year and that's reflective of kind of a slow activity in the market but there are certainly pockets, Pukenui being one of them, Ahipara, Doubtless Bay, where we are still seeing strong demand for the coastal- type properties.”
He has a waterfront property at Kaimaumau, south of Pukenui, and says the bulk of inquiry at the moment is not Aucklanders but people from Kaitaia.
“It tends to be locally-driven demand whereas 12 months ago a lot of that demand had been coming out of the likes of Auckland.”
People who had bought their first homes in Kaitaia had done well in value growth over the last couple of years, he says.
“Those people that bought their first homes were able to exit Kaitaia and bank $150,000 kind of profit and then move into some of these more coastal areas and get a bit of lifestyle, so it's the next home market rather than the holiday home market.”
There is still interest from Auckland, though, especially since Covid when people found they didn’t have to work from the office any more.
Stratton, who is also marketing a four-bedroom character cottage in Pukenui, says what the Far North has over tourist destinations like the Bay of Islands is a lower volume of people.
“For a couple of weeks we get kind of overrun with visitors but the rest of the time you pretty much have the place to yourself and it's unspoiled and beautiful.
863 Kaimaumau Road, in Kaimaumau, is on the market for $965,000. Photo / Supplied
This four-bedroom home at 3864 Far North Road, Pukenui, sits on a 5450sqm section. Photo / Supplied
“A bad day of traffic here is getting stuck behind a couple of cars at the roundabout.”
Further south in Kerikeri, the market has slowed to a crawl, says Gary Williams, principal/licensee for LJ Hooker.
Over the last month there were only 14 sales for the area, compared to 30 or 40 in more normal times.
“It's not good,” says Williams.
”The banks are part of it. The other part is when people sell they've got nowhere to go. You have to say, what’s your Plan B and half the time they don’t have a Plan B.”
There’s still inquiry from Aucklanders but they want to pay less at the moment, however, vendors are not dropping prices as yet.
Williams thinks the situation will improve soon, though. “I think once we hit the spring and the sun comes out and people get a bit of the old vitamin C in their bodies we'll see a difference, and as people get used to the fact that interest rates are slightly higher now.”
LJ Hooker still has good properties on offer, such as 239 Stanners Road, in Kerikeri, which has lifestyle living on 1.6 acres and is on the market for inquiries over $1.25m.
Also on Stanners Road, at 119D, is a lakefront home priced at $2.525m. This property has park-like gardens, a tennis court and a private jetty.
A four-bedroom home at 239 Stanners Road, in Kerikeri, is seeking offers of over $1.25m. Photo / Supplied
The price tags are a bit different about half an hour away in Kaikohe where the market is also quiet.
Williams says the area is more bank-dependent and first home buyers and investors are finding conditions tough at the moment.
LJ Hooker has a three-bedroom house in Harold Avenue on the market for $380,000, and a two-bedroom in nearby Ohaeawai for $390,000.
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