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Lure of a beach lifestyle will help sell your bach

Should you put up a ‘for sale’ sign when you’re on your annual beach break – or wait until the holidaymakers get back home? Gill South finds out.

It’s a tough call. Do you put up a ‘‘for sale’’ sign when you’re enjoying your muchlonged-for beach holiday at the family bach? Or do you wait until people get back home, and decide they want to own their own beachside retreat?

It used to be that holiday house owners sold their homes over spring and the peak summer months when the crowds were in town. But with digital marketing a key part of selling a home these days, and very strong interest in owning holiday homes as domestic travel is the flavour of the day, the advice seems to be that the buying and selling of beach homes is not nearly as seasonal as it once was.

If your holiday house is at a popular spot, with good access to all the area has to offer, you’re likely to have takers any time of the year, particularly as people are increasingly moving to live permanently at these resorts.

‘‘You can sell your beach house 365 days of the year now,’’ says Abby Lawrence, Coromandel agent with Richardsons Real Estate.

This is thanks to a few elements – good photography, people having more time on their hands, and fewer international holidays planned, thanks to Covid-19.

‘‘It used to be the spring was the best time, but the past 18 months has shown us if it’s a

good product and priced well, it will sell.’’

Sell when it suits you

Timing the sale also comes down to the needs of the property owner, says Lawrence.

If the vendors are highly

emotional and attached to the family bach – perhaps it’s been in the family for generations – selling is a big deal, and not just in a financial sense.

So they may choose to market the home when they’re not there.

Holiday weekends are another good time, says Lawrence, though she warns the closer it gets to Christmas, the more ‘‘people start thinking about hams not homes’’.

‘‘The pressure of Christmas is far more prevalent. But it’s a good thing to have the sign out until the kids go back to school in February,’’ she says.

People do a lot of tyre-kicking over the summer, and that’s where buying starts, says the agent, who deals with two main buyer pools, those from Auckland and those from Waikato. Having the ‘‘for sale’’ sign up while people are on holiday can alert them to the fact that this home could be bought.

Potential buyers ‘‘can see how many people you can cram in there. The lawn is covered in tents, there are boats, swing tennis – it can help them envisage how many people they can have over,’’ says Lawrence.

If you do decide to sell over the holidays, just be prepared for the real estate industry to be on a go slow, she warns. Solicitors also take a break over summer.

Lawrence finds that an initial conversation may happen about a home in January, but it may not be until February or March when the kids are back at school that a deal is done.

Don’t worry about being show-home ready

If you’re hesitant about putting the house on the market over the holidays because you don’t want to have the place spick-and-span the whole time, don’t let that worry you.

Buyers are not going to see your beach house in a show home, and that’s fine. If someone comes for a viewing put the towels away, but that’s about it, says Lawrence.

Buyers will do a lot of due diligence online on homes of interest during the holidays, she says.

‘‘Buyers are far more educated than they’ve ever been,’’ says Lawrence. ‘‘Now there’s so much information available at their fingertips, and they can check the home out on the council [website], and they can check that it’s healthy home compliant.’’

How big is your town?

The decision on whether it’s best to sell over the summer can depend on how central or remote your summer home is.

Bayleys Whitianga’s Belinda Sammons says timing on selling at the smaller beach settlements like Opito Bay and Ō tama Beach is still more likely to happen over the summer holiday period when these townships swell in numbers. ‘‘When there are not a lot of shops or activities to come to, then the summer market is more important,’’ she says.

But for the larger beach locations like Whitianga, Cooks Beach and Hahei, it’s not so important because people are visiting these places all year round.

The Bayleys agent says she will auction over the summer coming up to Christmas, or just after. The weather is usually good, people have a nice warm feeling about the place, they’ve had a holiday rental there before, and really want to buy something now.

Rob Ball, from Harcourts, put

a house up for sale in Opito Bay in the run-up to Christmas one year, hoping that someone who had been going there for generations would step up. He asked for expressions of interest, and while it was expected it would get in the $900,000s, it ended up selling for $1.45 million.

‘‘People have been going there for 20, 30 or 40 years, it has an emotional component,’’ he says.

Show off the lifestyle

If you decide to sell, be visible, says Ball. It’s a good idea to show how you organise storage, where you put things away and where you put the kids and teens, so they have their own space.

You’re selling the benefits of a beach lifestyle.

‘‘Are you selling what you’re seeing with your eyes or are you reflecting an emotional component?’’ says Ball. Invite friends to bring a boat, and show off the lifestyle you can have there, he says.

In Hawke’s Bay, one of the sunniest regions in the country, NZ Sotheby International’s agents, Darryl Buckley and Nic Goodman, have found the past 12 to 18 months, they have even sold beach homes throughout winter and autumn.

‘‘We’ve had such active inquiry, amazing sales out there, even on the worst, most horrible day, Waimarama has a lot of appeal,’’ say Buckley.

In the Nelson-Tasman region, Ray White agent Terry Milton says spring is a good time to list, because it’s when gardens are showing at their best.

For beach houses, September and early December are probably the best time, he adds.

But it always comes back to supply and demand – the region has a lack of stock and a large number of people looking, he says.

‘‘You can sell your beach house 365 days of the year now. It used to be the spring was the best time, but the past 18 months has shown us if it’s a good product and priced well, it will sell.’’ Abby Lawrence

Homed

en-nz

2021-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/283502209281986

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