Key’s former magical playground for sale
The luxury beach house once owned by Sir John Key has hit the market.
The four-bedroom bach at 43 Success Court, in Omaha, is for sale by way of deadline treaty and has a CV of $5.4 million.
The property, which sits on
1000sq m-plus of absolute beachfront land in the rich-lister enclave, had been owned by the Key family for more than
25 years. The family sold it in
2018 for $3.1m in 2018 to former ANZ chief executive David Hisco.
Key said at the time that he and wife Bronagh had decided to sell because they were not using the bach much.
The $3.1m sale price was much commented upon in the media because it was under the property’s then CV of $3.65m.
Key told the Herald in 2019, when details of the sale were made public, that he believed the council assessment — released in November 2017 — was fundamentally wrong for the property.
Listing agent Di Balich, of Precision Real Estate, said in her marketing on OneRoof that this was the first time in 33 years the property had been openly advertised for sale.
She highlighted the home’s connection to the Key family and the fact the bach was one of only a few single-level beachfront properties in Omaha on a 1000sq m-plus section.
“This home offers a magical playground of ocean front-row entertainment: spectacular sunrises and sunsets, dolphins and surf,” she said, adding that it was “Omaha’s best kept secret”.
Balich said her clients found that they were not using the bach as much as they used to as they travel a lot.
She said the family had spent a lot of money upgrading the property, including adding a new roof, and had price expectations of between $6.5m and $7m. “It’s in very, very good condition,” she said.
Balich noted there had only been one other beachfront sale this year — a property on Lagoon Way, which sold for $6.65m in March, “and that was a smaller section.
“Values were low in the last year, but we’re expecting them to be higher this summer.”
The Hisco family will be looking for a better result than the one achieved by another former Key family home.
The Auckland mansion which the Keys sold in 2017 for $23.5m resold at the end of last year for $16.3m.
The seven-bedroom mansion on Saint Stephens Avenue, in Parnell, had made a surprise re-appearance on the open market after a private deal with a New Zealand-based buyer collapsed.
The sprawling home, which has a pool and spa and a 2021 CV of $22m, had been rented out. The November 2022 sale price represented the biggest resale loss of 2022.