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Wander around Mangawhai's baches and houses clinging to the coastline, and there's plenty of kiwiana bach nostalgia to see - long-drop loos in outhouses, skinny baches that started life as an Auckland tramcar, camping grounds on the beach, little fibrolite boxes with stories to tell.
Houses still use septic tanks, and old wooden telegraph poles with saggy wires connect electricity to rumpty baches sitting on land which is escalating in price every month.
And then there are the views - either overlooking the estuary and the giant Mangawhai sand dune or, on the seaward side, the Hen and Chicken Islands, the Coromandel, Little Barrier Island and, on a clear day, the Mokohinaus and Great Barrier Island.
Mangawhai, it seems, is the new Omaha. The majority of its holiday-home customers are Aucklanders, searching for a way out of the city that doesn't mean hours in the car, wanting a taste of their childhood - sand, seagulls, the typical Kiwi bach.
Mangawhai still delivers that, but Harcourts estate agent Rob Brooks says it won't be for long. It's on the cusp of joining other "discovered" coastal getaways - Pauanui, Mata-rangi, Omaha, Mahurangi. The days of the cute little bach are numbered.
Already, a spot on the estuary is around $1 million, pokey bach included. A decent house on the ocean side is about $1.5 million, still a bargain by Omaha standards.
And developers, cashing in on Mangawhai's growing popularity, are carving up big tracts of rural land to give those on a budget a chance to go to the beach. The holiday houses don't have sea views, and in many cases it's a car ride to the beach, but a new two-bedroom home and section is selling for as little as $299,000. By comparison, Omaha, the North Island's most expensive sandspit, has priced itself off the market for many holiday home buyers wanting somewhere within an hour or two's drive.
Entry point is between $550,000 and $600,000 for a fairly tired 1970s house. That might buy a peep of the sea - but possibly not.
Linda de Vine, who has sold Omaha real estate with United for 14 years, says some dislike the suburban feel of the place when they first come searching for a beach house. They look elsewhere but often come back. In the end, it is what the kids want - and that magic less-than-an-hour trip back to Auckland.
It's an investment, de Vine says, which is never likely to peak.
New ocean-front homes at the southern end of Omaha, developed in the late 90s, are now selling for between $2.3 million and nearly $3 million. A vacant section sold last year for $1.6 million; its price in 1999 was $595,000.
But for those put off by Omaha's rows of little houses, the longer drive north to Mangawhai is worth it.
Auckland advertising account director Ashley Simpson bought a house at Mangawhai two years ago, both as a holiday home and as an investment. He and his partner Kath Mason use the house, which sleeps up to 10, to entertain friends, rather than their small townhouse in Auckland.
Mason, a mother of two, said the attraction of Mangawhai was the 90-minute drive from Auckland - either by State Highway 1 or by the more scenic Highway 16 - the Mangawhai Golf Course, the surf beaches and the estuary, which was good for boogie boarding and launching boats.
Long-time Mangawhai resident Lou Larkin has watched the newcomers and the subdivisions close in around his idyllic spot on the edge of the estuary. He's had his dilapidated two-story bach, surrounded by rusty corrugated iron fencing and sheds, for 50 years. He keeps chickens, has a yard full of tattered banana palms and has no intention of moving.
A few doors along, a small brown bach on a similar piece of land is for sale for around $1 million. Up on a hill behind him, a section which runs off down a cliff is for sale for $850,000. Sections at the nearby Mangawhai Heads surf beach development, perched high on a hill, sold from between $395,000 to more than $900,000.
And the search for the perfect beach spot north of Auckland doesn't stop at Mangawhai. Round the point from Mangawhai Heads, the white sands of Bream Bay stretch out enticingly for 20km - Langs Beach, Waipu, Uretiti Beach, Ruakaka - and Aucklanders are heading there in droves. Hopper Developments is building canals and a marina at Marsden Cove, on the shores of Whangarei Harbour, and a subdivision at Ruakaka.
Sections at another Ruakaka development, La Pointe, at One Tree Pt, are selling for $240,000 to $400,000, complete with palm trees and a chip-and-putt course. At Ruakaka Surf Beach, sections are selling for more than $400,000.
Agent Carol McInnes, of Professionals, said two years ago houses at One Tree Pt sold for $450,000. Now they were $650,000, with those by the water's edge reaching $1 million.
