$1 reserve for Hawke's Bay beachfront property: What's the catch?

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The seafront half of the land is now part of the sea due to erosion.
Photo: Supplied

A TradeMe listing for a piece of land on a Hawke’s Bay beachfront selling for $1 reserve is generating interest from all over the world.

The block of land in the Hastings suburb Haumoana is in a coastal hazard zone meaning there is a risk of high seas and damage.

The seafront half of the land is now part of the sea due to erosion.

Bayley real estate agent Fiona Mackenzie said building on the site was restricted and the new owner would have to submit plans through council.

“There’s no guarantee. It would completely depend on that person’s submitting plans to council.

“Council would then do quite a big assessment on the land and on those plans and what they wanted to do and then they could apply for resource consent,” Mackenzie said.

She said the idea for the $1 reserve was from her vendor who wanted to have fun with the sale.

“He originally bought it because he had an idea of building a restaurant adjacent to that site and went quite a long way down the track but sanity prevailed and for one reason or another it couldn’t happen so now he doesn’t need it anymore,” Mackenzie said.

The block of land in the Hastings suburb Haumoana is in a coastal hazard zone.
Photo: Supplied

The property has generated a lot of interest, including from overseas.

“There’s probably been 12,000 views on TradeMe alone. I’ve probably had 100 enquiries from all around the world: Australia, Singapore, UK, America, Germany, India. Loads and loads of enquiries but unfortunately overseas people can’t buy it because it is on the coast, so it would require OIO consent for them to buy it. So we’re just having to do a bit of research to find out whether these people qualify or not.”

There were 16 homes along the strip of land, with seven of them changing hands in the past five years, Mackenzie said.

All of them are in various conditions and have sold between $75,000 and $600,000.

“This site obviously doesn’t have a dwelling on it, so we really have no idea at all what it will sell for but I mean I think we can feel confident it’s going to be over $1,” Mackenzie said.

The auction for the land begins at 12pm on Friday, 9 February.