Bush Haven In Cooee Of Surf

Newcastle Herald

Saturday November 25, 2006

By ALYSSON WATSON

COUNTRY living need not mean you are a long way from the coast, and a coastal acreage can certainly achieve the best of both worlds.

The Nabiac-based Buckinghams Mid North Coast Real Estate specialises in such properties from Forster to Gloucester and Bulahdelah to Harrington.

Agent Jacqui Buckingham said her buyers were mainly Central Coast people looking for the space they used to have before they were built out.

"Semi-retirees, retirees and the odd young family are moving up here, but it's mostly people who don't need to work," Ms Buckingham said.

Unlike rural holdings in areas like the Hunter Valley, where buyers were looking at the tax advantages of running a few stock, mid-North Coast buyers were just looking for a bit of space, Ms Buckingham said.

"What they really want is a rural property with the advantage of still being close to the beach," she said.

"They want no neighbours, space, peace and quiet and no main roads."

Small holdings of between two and five acres (one to two hectares) were the most sought-after.

The mid-North Coast was now a buyer's market, and some properties were taking up to 12 months to sell.

"It's a case of our market catching up, but prices still haven't come back as much as, say, on the Central Coast," Ms Buckingham said.

Buyers from the Central Coast used to be able to move immediately on a property they liked, confident of selling their own property quickly.

Now they were more likely to wait and try to sell their own property first, which had also come back in value and took longer to sell.

Nabiac and Dyers Crossing were probably the most sought-after areas for coastal acreages, at about half-an-hour from the beach, Ms Buckingham said.

But tightly held Old Bar offered coastal acreages only five minutes from the beach.

© 2006 Newcastle Herald

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