Wawata Estate on Waiheke Island - founder calls in agents to sell entire project as one lot. Photo / Supplied
Wawata Estate on Waiheke Island - founder calls in agents to sell entire project as one lot. Photo / Supplied
The developer of Waiheke Island’s $60 million Wawata Estate wants out because sales of the housing sites are taking longer than expected.
Chris Jacobs says he now wants to sell the entire project as one lot so he has called in commercial real estate specialist Whillans Realty Group and itsagent Michael Pleciak, previously involved in sales for billionaire Ric Kayne’s Tara Iti Golf Club.
The Waiheke site previously sold for $32m last decade.
Jacobs said unsold sections at the 38ha site marketed as New Zealand’s “most exclusive luxury residential real estate” project were now being marketed collectively.
That is a sign of dramatic housing market changes and a move which shocked others in the industry who said it shows just how difficult some deals have become.
But Jacobs wanted to stress he will still take offers for individual sites from buyers if they’re keen, while at the same time engaging Pleciak to quit all unsold sites if someone is keen.
The owner and developer of what was a hilltop farm said the land and infrastructure above Palm Beach were valued at $60m but he wouldn’t name valuers.
Ten of the 25 sites had been sold so far, leaving 15 unsold, he said.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that it’s a bad time to sell luxury coastal real estate to the market. We’ve sold 10 places. Eight were sold at their valuation or greater than that,” Jacobs said.
Lots are priced from $2m to $3.5m.
“I’d have liked the sections to sell faster but Pearlfisher has been very understanding about the whole situation,” he said.
“I have put the remaining 15 sections with Whillans as a private off-market deal. It’s an exploratory exercise to see if there’s anyone out there with a mind to take it on. I’ve been involved with it for five years. I’ll stay in it if I need to.
“I have put it as an off-market sale because I don’t want to do any damage to the individual section sales which Ray White has the sole agency on. I want people to understand the sections are still for sale individually with that agency. We still have people looking at buying individual sites.”
Asked if he was shocked about how things unfolded, he said: “If there was anyone planning something like this, who put a worldwide pandemic into their business plan, they’d be incredibly clued up. It didn’t surprise me once Covid started. I could see what the effect was going to be.”
New Zealanders were mainly looking for holiday homes on Waiheke. Fewer wanted sections, he said.
“Sales of land where people face two to three-year construction periods have slowed on the island.”
Of the 10 sales, around six were to Kiwis living overseas who planned to return to live there permanently, he said.
“Some within New Zealand plan to use the sites as holiday homes initially but eventually settle there,” Jacobs said.
Thompson’s Point was an ex-cattle farm and Auckland Council had granted consent for works including four new roads.
The property was sold for $32m plus GST, the Herald reported in 2018. Cattle farmers Colin and Jillian Devine had bought it for $250,000 in the 1980s.
Wawata Estate project manager Greg Robbins said in 2018 that it would be a low-density rural development.
“With the house sites occupying just 15 per cent of the total land area, the finished estate will resemble a 94-acre park dotted with discreet, thoughtfully placed homes,” he said five years ago.
That would be an improvement to gorse and tobacco weed which covered the site then.
Wawata Estate had worked with local iwi and Heritage New Zealand and archaeological sites had been identified and would be protected. The vendors kept 3km along the coast, planning to build homes for five daughters.
Pleciak today refused to talk about Wawata’s sale, saying he did not talk to any media about anything.
The Herald reported in 2015 how he was then involved in luxury golf course sales north of Auckland.
Pleciak then worked with Michigan-raised Jim Rohrstaff at Auckland-headquartered Legacy Partners. They were selling sites at New Zealand’s most exclusive new golf club/residential estate with invitation-only membership limited to about 300 members.
The course was developed by New Zealand resort specialist John Darby with Kayne joining him part-way into the planning, which is where Rohrstaff came into the picture, working for Legacy Partners which is marketing residences around the estate. Back then, sales of lifestyle and residential properties were not banned by the Overseas Investment Act and many foreigners bought and still own sites around the golf course.
