Closer ties to Norfolk Island just another reason for Australians to make the ultimate sea change

It’s being billed as the ultimate treechange and seachange – combined – for house-hunters who despair of ever being able to afford to buy a home of their own in one of the capital cities.

With a maximum five-minute commute to work, lots of jobs, huge infrastructure projects underway, close to sandy beaches and national parks, and prices of four-bedroom houses on 4000-8000 square metres generally about a third of Sydney’s million-dollar median, the new home hotspot is … Norfolk Island.

From July 1, the formerly self-governing island just a two-and-a-half Air New Zealand flight from Sydney, and two hours from Brisbane, became more closely integrated with mainland Australia, now with access to Australia’s welfare and healthcare systems.

“So it’s a great time to buy property here and move here,” says local real estate agent Pip Reeves of L.J. Quintal Real Estate, run by her partner Les Quintal, an eighth generation Bounty Mutiny descendant.

“It’s a really exciting time. We’ve got a lot of tourists coming, seeing what a beautiful place it is, then deciding to make the move. It’s never been as easy as it is now, and this place is an absolute paradise.”

Prices on the island, in the Tasman Sea north of New Zealand, start from about $295,000 for a four-bedroom property, while just over $1 million will buy luxurious architect-designed homes with spectacular views of the ocean or rolling green hills.

Well-known Norfolk residents have included the late world-renowned novelist Colleen McCullough, singer Helen Reddy and adventurer, author, photographer, former Getaway TV show presenter and artist Sorrel Wilby.

Wilby, 55, has lived on Norfolk for the past 15 years with her husband cameraman Chris Ciantar, 59, and their children Aden, now 17, and Ruby, 13. With Aden about to go to university in Canberra, they’ve decided to downsize and have put their designer home on the market – ready to buy something else on the island.

“We don’t want to move away from the island, we love it here,” Wilby says. “It’s so relaxed, it’s a wonderful thinking and creative space and is the ultimate seachange, really. There are now so many opportunities for people here and it’s an idyllic lifestyle. It’s simply a great place to live.”

Norfolk Island has some good schools – about 300 children live there of its total population of 1800 – medical facilities, a number of new industries and projects taking place, and several real estate agencies, with one reported to have done as much business in the past nine months as he had in the last six to seven years.

The economy is now taking off after many years of being in the doldrums, says the island’s administrator Gary Hargrave. As well as the new Medicare and security benefits, people living there also enjoy a more generous tax threshold of $19,500 because of its remote location.

“But there aren’t many ‘remote’ locations in the world you can reach in two hours in an Airbus 320!” he says. “And it is a very attractive place to live. There’s a real labour shortage here with at least 50 jobs I know of lying vacant, and there are a lot of employment opportunities.

“It’s a pretty exciting time as we move forward with proper development plans and our prospects for growth look very strong.”

Houses on offer via L.J.Quintal include a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house on 674 square metres with a separate self-contained one-bedroom apartment attached on Grassy Road for $295,000. There’s also a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house, Kiernan, on 3500sq m on a hill for sale with ocean vistas on three sides and mountains on the last, for $720,000.

Meanwhile, Wilby’s four-bedroom, two-bathroom house on 12,800sq m at Steeles Point, with a self-contained one-bedroom studio next to its orchard – and a DA in place to be run as tourist accommodation – is priced at $1.15 million.

Consumer protection law is still catching up with the mainland, however, with, for example, no cooling-off period on signed contracts on the island. “That’s all to come,” says Hardgrave.

Lotta Jackson, general manager of the Norfolk Island Regional Council, says Australians don’t even need a passport to travel there, so it’s much easier to visit, buy property and settle.

“It’s certainly a very attractive place to live,” she says. “Our new regional council is only six weeks old and I visited from Coffs Harbour and felt it was a place I could live and work and six weeks later, I’d fallen in love with it. We’re now urging people to come and visit, knowing they’ll probably fall in love with it and stay.”