Coromandel boom a mixed blessing for bach owners

By ELIZABETH BINNING

Richard Northey is struggling with a dilemma over the old Coromandel family bach where his father's ashes are buried.

The 809m section at Wyuna Bay has tripled in value in just a few years, but that price has brought difficulties.

The latest valuation puts the land at $600,000 - and increases the rates Mr Northey, an Auckland City councillor and former Labour MP, has to pay.

Selling in such a lucrative market would go a long way towards paying some bills but other members of Mr Northey's family, who jointly own the section, are not so keen.

"With the rates in particular going up, it's becoming less worth [keeping] it. They are already higher than for the properties we own in Auckland City," said Mr Northey.

He said he could not sell his share of the property to other family members because the latest valuation made it too expensive for relatives to buy him out.

"When you are going to have to pay $2500 in rates, let alone the other costs of deferred maintenance and keeping the power on ... it becomes a challenge.

"Yet this is a place we lived in together, my father's ashes are buried there, it's got a spiritual attachment to it. But, a spiritual attachment balanced against hard cash is a difficult equation."

In some areas, such as Waitete Bay south of Colville, people have reportedly gone from door to door offering $1 million for an immediate sale. No one has accepted.

On the other side of the peninsula, one family decided to sell after the offers became too great to turn down.

The couple, who want to be known as Paul and Janis, bought into a section in Whangapoua nine years ago. Over the past few years most of the family dropped out of co-ownership, leaving only the couple and Janis' parents.

This year a builder made an offer for the section, which had only a few trees, water tanks and two rotting campervans. They turned it down.

"He just kept offering more and more money until my father-in-law said okay," Paul said.

The final price, just under $258,000, was more than $100,000 over the latest Government valuation and a huge increase on the $58,000 they paid for the section.

Paul and Janis have paid off a "chunk" of their mortgage, and Janis' parents bought a new section with a bach they can rent out. "It's mixed blessings," said Paul. "Suddenly you have got all this money which you can invest in something else."

But selling meant that it would be difficult to re-enter the Coromandel market, he said.