Finder’s fee: Lodge offers $10k reward
The owners of a beachfront B&B near Kaiko¯ ura are offering $10,000 to anyone who can find a buyer. The Factory owners, Paul and Janet Boocock, have owned the boutique lodge, a restored dairy factory, for eight years but decided to put it on the market in January.
But with barely a sniff, and desperate to join newborn grandchildren in Australia, they’ve decided to offer an enticing finder’s fee.
Paul Boocock said they were asking $1.25 million for the fivebedroom, three-bathroom property, with the $10,000 reward on offer for two months.
The Factory was split into two wings: the owners’ home and the guest wing, with a spa, a helicopter pad, and a glasshouse.
‘‘The idea is that if someone passes the ad on to someone else, and they end up buying it . . . then we give them $10,000.’’
To claim the $10,000 reward, the buyer would have to nominate who told them about the property and the sale would have to go through the Boococks rather than a real estate agency.
Special guests to The Factory had included Dixie Chicks singer Martie Maguire and a host of Australian stars, while locals included Hector’s dolphins, and the odd orca, Boocock said.
Paul Boocock fell in love with the 1910 Ha¯ puku property while passing by on holiday after
30 years in Australia.
‘‘We checked it out for
45 minutes; I thought I would forget about it . . . but I kept thinking about it and couldn’t let it go . . . I saw the potential and what we could do with it and it just seemed so right,’’ he said.
Originally a dairy factory, it had a second life as a woolshed, until two Auckland artists discovered it in 1996 and converted the decrepit building into a luxury five-bedroom home.
When the Boococks took over the business eight years ago, they revamped the self-contained guest wing into a five-star luxury lodge.
The business turned over about
$100,000 a year, Boocock said.
‘‘It would suit anyone who wants quite an easy lifestyle business . . . someone semi-retired, or maybe expats coming back to New Zealand,’’ he said.
In the digital age, one could easily do other jobs while running the lodge on the side, he said.
The property was set for someone to walk in and take over. ‘‘Everything stays except a couple of paintings – there’s a large list of chattels that go with it [the property],’’ Boocock said.
‘‘Also things like lawnmowers; if someone wants a boat, then that’s negotiable; 4WD, then that’s negotiable. All we’re asking is the same as a two-bedroom unit on the northern beaches of Sydney, and someone’s got themselves a lifestyle business.’’
Kaiko¯ ura Realty owner Joe van Rooyen said the real estate market had been ‘‘reasonably steady’’ since the 2016 earthquakes.
‘‘We had expected it to completely close down for six or 12 months. There’s been a good demand for houses that are damaged, mainly from Christchurch builders who have experience in that field,’’ he said.
‘‘There’s actually a shortage of properties to sell. But in saying that, prices haven’t skyrocketed.’’
Market prices in Kaiko¯ ura were probably on par with Christchurch, he said.
‘‘Traditionally, Kaiko¯ ura has always been more expensive than Blenheim, but there’s been a surge in Blenheim recently, so we may be on par, or they may even have surpassed us now.’’
Van Rooyen said prospective Factory buyers had to want the lifestyle of running a B&B.
‘‘Generally speaking, those sort of businesses have to be owneroperated, they’re not at a scale where they can have a manager in place. It has to be someone who’s outgoing and who’s interested in dealing with the public and likes the interaction with tourists [and] having it as a lifestyle rather than just a profit-making venture.’’
‘‘It would suit anyone who wants quite an easy lifestyle business . . . someone semiretired, or maybe expats coming back to New Zealand.’’ Paul Boocock