Sorry to be a party pooper but this #buythisbeachNZ campaign is a complete waste of time and will not work. It’s a lovely idea…but a waste of time.

If you own property let me ask you this. If you purchased a house close to a decade ago for say $400,000 would you sell it today for $400,000? Answer ‘No’.

If you were very interested in purchasing a property and you knew exactly what you competitor was going to offer would you offer a smidge more to get that property? Answer ‘Yes’.

The Able Tasman beach in question was purchased by Michael Spackman in September 2008 for $1,925,000. Presently it’s rating valuation is $1,580,000. That means when he purchased the property the ‘RV’ was likely far less but he still purchased it for two or three times the RV value. This means that on today’s market it could sell for somewhere between $3,000,000 and $4,000,000 so unfortunately the $2,000,000 being raised by the #buythisbeachNZ campaign will be well short of what the beach sells for. Also if you wanted to purchase this property and you knew that these vendors had raised, lets say, $2,100,000 then in your vendors bid you would make it $2,150,000. Everyone knows what this group is going to bid on this property. From Mr. Spackman’s point of view (or anyone who was selling their property) his expectation would be to get much more than he invested nearly a decade ago and with revelations yesterday that he is being chased for millions of dollars by the BNZ it’s not very likely that he will choose to gift the million or so that the campaign will be short to the people of NZ and, if we’re honest, who would?

Gareth Morgan has since come out of the woodwork and pointed out some of these points and offered to put in a million more if he can use one of the buildings on the property for 15 years. So NZ would get 99% of the property now, then the remaining 1% of the property in 15 years when Morgan relinquished it to the people of NZ. Seems like a fair idea to me…I mean if the choice is that or losing it to a private owner for ever more. But the group behind #buythisbeachNZ has said ‘No’ which makes me question both their motives and intelligence.

So who are the protagonists in this story? Gareth Morgan is the guy who has a track record of donating large sums of money to people and groups in NZ for the betterment of the country, like the $47 million he gave away after the sale of trademe and who are the people behind the #buythisbeachNZ campaign?…dunno…Duane Major is the man fronting it but what is his background?…dunno…what is his track record with vast sums of money?…dunno…what is his credit like to be able to handle large sums of money?…dunno…what happens when the $2 million mark is hit, but the property does not get purchased?…dunno…what is the recourse for all the people who have given money that, when the $2 million is hit, will go through but then not used to purchase the property as I’ve spelled out above?…dunno…why does he want so much control that he has rebuffed Morgans offer, then only offer that will possibly secure the beach for NZ?,,,dunno but I am far more comfortable with Gareth Morgan using a small crib on the property for 15 years than the unknown Mr Major having unaccountable access to $2 million.

There are only two possible conclusions here. The first is that Major is a well being moron and doesn’t understand that $2 million won’t purchase the property, or he calculating and incredibly smart, knows exactly what he is doing and knows that in a few days he’ll have access to $2 million dollars and nothing to spend it on. Both conclusions lend me to state again that whilst this seems to be a nice idea, at best it is a complete waste of time and at worst it is a con of the highest magnitude.