April
Easter came early in April 2024 and the long-running Waiheke Jazz Festival was once again hailed a roaring success. It wasn’t all celebrations though as a study from Auckland University researchers shed light on the changing attitudes of Waiheke holiday homeowners. Co-author professor Deborah Levy said that high property prices, squeezes on income and the rising cost of living are fundamentally changing people’s relationships with their holiday homes and that increasingly Waiheke was representative of a ‘financialisation’ of the iconic Kiwi bach.
Best-selling British-born author Neil Gaiman recognised housing prices had changed since the pandemic-fuelled price explosion when he had bought his Waiheke sanctuary. He’d bought it for $2.21 million in December 2021 and was willing to take $1.55 million –a loss of $660,000 reported his real estate agent Sherryn El Bakary.
Families on the island had more pressure added to their already-squeezed weekly budgets as it was announced that the free and half price fares on Auckland Transport (AT) services for AT HOP card holders would soon end, including students travelling on school buses.
• Sarah Gloyer
Full story in this week’s Gulf News……. On sale now
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