From the country to the coast

Mollymook is a small town cooking up a huge reputation. Although its permanent population sits at about 3,500, thousands more descend on the coastal patch and surrounding villages each year for a slice of its laidback lifestyle and five star culinary offerings.

Like its beachside peers across the country, Mollymook on NSW’s South Coast turned heads during the pandemic years. City slickers narrowed in on the space, serenity and affordability of the region transforming the sleepy holiday town into a desirable destination among more permanent buyers.

A return to normal

In 2020, the median house prices in Mollymook Beach and Mollymook were $785,000 and $750,000 respectively.

By the time the property cycle hit its peak in 2021 those figures

had almost doubled. Domain data reported that Mollymook Beach clocked up the highest house price growth of any suburb in Australia over the five years to July 2022, registering an incredible 106 per cent price hike.

Today, however, the extraordinary flight to the country has eased with

interest rate rises pouring water on boiling house prices.

While down 2.4 percent from peak prices, Mollymook’s house median is still $1.22 million while Mollymook Beach sits at $1.05 million, down a significant 21.3 per cent over the same period according to REA Group data.

Andrea Tucker, principal of McGrath Estate Agents Mollymook said the region has travelled through a price adjustment and is coming out the other side.

“We’re still ahead if you round those figures up,” she says. We’re really trading back in a normal market after quite a bullish time.

“There’s a little caution from buyers now, but they’re still quite active in the market. They’re
just sitting back waiting for opportunities, particularly if they’re looking for investment properties.”

Tucker adds that when it comes to home prices, Mollymook has several sweet spots.

“If you can pick up anything in Mollymook under $1 million, you’ll have people all over it,” she says. “Then you go up in gradients but once it gets over $2 million the buyer pool starts to thin out.”

Local agents place the luxury market in excess of $3 million, however in the heady days of 2021, a beachfront house in Mollymook sold for $10 million via online auction. Just five years prior, the same four-bedroom house at 15 Shipton Crescent was bought for $2.26 million.

Dishing up the good life

Motel Molly, Mollymook – Review | The Australian — Once known as the Surfbeach Motel, Motel Molly has been restored and updated by interior architects Richards Stanisch with an eye on our nostalgia for the classic beach holiday.

In addition to its popular surf beach, Mollymook has a large natural rock pool known as the Bogey Hole and Mollymook Golf Club maintains two prized golf courses; an 18-hole championship course known as the Hilltop and a smaller 9-hole beachside course.

“One of the beautiful things about living here is you’re less than 10 minutes from the beach or the countryside. We’re really blessed,” Tucker says. “Not to mention we’re quite spoilt for fantastic restaurants.”

In 2009, English celebrity chef Rick Stein put Mollymook on the national food map when he opened his first Australian restaurant, Rick Stein at Bannisters. Other high-profile restaurants include the Asian-inspired Gwylo and The Beachside Bistro with nearby fine dining spots such as Cupitts Estate and Small Town are also attracting the tourist trade.

With the food scene flourishing, the accommodation landscape is developing in Mollymook too. Earlier this year, Motel Molly became the latest in a string of revived retro motels across the country. Following the multi- million-dollar refurbishment of a former beachside motel by Knox Developments and Richards Stanisich — also responsible for refitting historic Sydney joints Hotel Rose Bay as well as The Woollahra Hotel.

Sensing its saleability, developers are also waking up to Mollymook. Peniche, a four-storey luxury development of eight three- bedroom apartments, was given the green light by Shoalhaven Council in early 2023. The
project at 1 Buchan Street is currently being marketed through McGrath Mollymook and is set for completion in late 2024.

Its perks will include a shared pool, views to the ocean as well as Mollymook golf course with prices starting at $1.75 million.

Holiday home trends

Local buyer’s agent, Matt Knight of Precium, says while investors making the most of the tourism trade had stepped back after a flurry of activity post-COVID, there still is a holiday home market in Mollymook.

“While we’ve seen a softening in tourist numbers, they’re still very large tourist numbers. When international borders were shut there was a captive audience of tourists with nowhere to go except for where they could drive to. As a result, we had a very high hotel and holiday home occupancy rates and a subsequent massive spike in prices,” he said.

Airdna, which analyses the performance of short-term rental properties listed on Stayz and Airbnb, revealed that by December 2022, demand for Mollymook Beach holiday rentals was down 27 percent for January compared to
the previous summer. As Australians began venturing abroad once again, owners invested in the short term rental market started rethinking their strategies according to Knight.

“The Airbnb occupancy rate has dropped a little and some of those properties have come back to a more normal holiday vacancy rate,” he says. “A few people may have decided in response to pull their property off the holiday let market and put in a permanent tenant, particularly in the light of all the interest rate rises. So that’s caused a bit of an easing in the long term rental market.”

What buyers want

House hunters turning to Mollymook cover a wide cross section, Tucker explains, but the hottest properties are four-bedroom houses with retirees, investors and families all in the mix.

“I get really excited about the young professionals still moving here,” Tucker says. “We had a lot come through COVID, and although some have had their corporate companies claw them back into the office, they’re still coming.

“They’ve had their eyes opened. They realise they can take up surfing, there are smaller class sizes for their kids, they’re not spending so much time in traffic.

“There’s still a lot of enticement for young professionals to move here.” Knight agrees the stream of buyers is a mixed bag from expats hoping to return Down Under, to retirees and digital nomads.

“There’s still a small number of people leaving the cities because they can work from home. I’d say the volume has gone down, but it’s still there and people are making real estate choices based on that,” he says, adding that Mollymook and its surrounds has something not all quiet coastal towns can offer.

“It’s really become a place where a sophisticated buyer, who wants the beach but also the mod cons of life, can have it all. Whereas some of the more remote beaches are beautiful, but they just have a little general store.”

Ultimately, Mollymook’s “critical mass” offers something for almost everyone according to Knight.

“I left Sydney more than 15 years ago and raised four children down here. It’s actually a viable area with schooling options and an economy that’s holding its own. It’s not just a one-club town for retirees, it certainly appeals to a wider age demographic and a wider set of expectations.”

When one spouse retires but the other doesn’t, roles change and feelings get complicated.

David Buck, 60, stepped back from a long career in sales management just as his wife, Susan Rose, 58, an ordained minister, leaned in, working 40-plus hours a week.

They’ve had to rethink who does what at home. David now folds more of the laundry and takes on grocery duties. He also has freedom, which Susan sometimes longs for. He talks about going to visit their adult children, who live out of state. Their first grandchild is on the way.

“I do get jealous. I have a couple more years,” Susan says.

Most couples now retire at di’fferent times , research suggests.

Only 18% of retired households claimed Social Security at the same time, according to a review of Federal Reserve data conducted by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

A separate poll found that just 11% of couples retire at the same time. Nearly two-thirds stagger their retirement by at least a year, according to a survey of 1,510 couples ages 45 to 70 commissioned by Ameriprise Financial, a financial services company.

Timing two retirements

The timing of retirement is often out of a couple’s hands. Nearly one-third of retirees surveyed left the workforce unexpectedly due to layoffs and early retirement packages. Health is also a factor.

Women, who often leave work to care for older parents or in-laws, retire at younger ages, averaging 62 compared with 65 for men, according to the Center for Retirement Research. A younger spouse may continue working to keep family health insurance until Medicare kicks in, or to delay having to tap retirement savings. They may want to hold off collecting Social Security to get higher payments.

Some people simply want to keep working even if their partner doesn’t. Living on one paycheck can be scary for people used to having two, no matter how much money couples have.

When couples retire at different times, routines, schedules and expectations diverge, and tensions can surface. Assumptions arise over who should clean or make dinner. The still-working partner may feel a twinge of envy when the other one heads to the beach or visits grandchildren.

“There can be resentment. This is the time people have been dreaming about,” says Pepper Schwartz, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Washington who focuses on relationships.

Other couples are wary of their partner retiring and being around all the time. “They dread too much togetherness,” says working filmmaker Sharon Hyman, 61, who lives separately from her retired partner of 25 years.

Navigating new routines

David Brown, 70, and Beth Keenan-Brown, 64, planned to retire together. Last year, Beth left her nursing job and David retired from the Secret Service. They made plans to travel to Budapest and spend more time at their beach house.

Shortly after Beth retired, she received a dream job offer and returned to work full time, as director of clinical operations for a Maryland hospice agency. Now she spends the week in their Severna Park, Md., home, which is larger and has space for a home office, while David stays at their beach home in Delaware, where he bikes and volunteers with Meals on Wheels. They travel back and forth.

“It’s a challenge keeping our calendars straight,” says David.

Beth logs her meetings on a joint Google Calendar so David knows when not to call. Every morning, they FaceTime over coffee and talk about their plans. On Wednesdays they each get takeout from the same type of restaurant, recently Ethiopian, and eat together over a video call.

There are upsides, too. They have made two trips since she took her new job, one to Costa Rica and the other to the Netherlands, thanks to her added income. Beth has unlimited paid vacation with her new job.

She says it would be hard if they were still in the same house and she was working while he was retired. “I think I would drive you nuts,” says Beth, adding that she is younger and has more energy than David.

“I just can’t keep up with you,” says David, who had a stroke a few years ago and needed to slow down.

Tough choices, new roles

Jeni Mastin, 74, of Vancouver, British Columbia, retired a decade ago from a career in nonprofits and social work. Her partner, Cameron Hood, is still working as a musician, teaching music and performing jazz.

“I’m an artist. I imagine I will be working until I drop dead,” he says.

Their different schedules and responsibilities have led to some inconveniences. Earlier this year, Jeni planned a monthlong 65th birthday celebration for Cameron in Mexico. They cut it a week short because of his teaching job. Cameron’s work schedule also means that he can’t always go with Jeni to her doctor’s appointments. His substitute teaching job ends at 3:30 p.m. and there’s an hourlong commute.

David Buck and his wife, Susan Rose, the minister, are navigating the transition in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

David, who describes himself as “semiretired,” continues to advise some clients of his time-management consulting business. Susan logs more than 40 hours a week doing two part-time jobs, one as transitional pastor at a local church and the other at a nonprofit she formed to mentor women in ministry.

David has picked up more responsibilities at home, taking on tasks that Susan did before she began working more and he semiretired. He takes their cars in for maintenance and balances the checkbook.

“If the dogs need to go to the vet, that’s me,” says David.

Susan says she has a hard time letting some things go. “I will say, ‘I can go to the grocery store on the way home,’ and Dave will say, ‘Stop. I can go to the grocery store. Tell me what we need,’ ” she says, although he tends to pick up snacks and cookies that she wouldn’t buy.

It has been an adjustment for David, too.

Being semiretired, he says he sometimes forgets about the demands of a job, especially one in ministry where congregation members have needs outside of 9 to 5. She might call and say her meeting went longer than expected. “Then I’m sitting there thinking, ‘I got dinner about ready. What am I going to do now?’ ” he says.