Break free of Auckland housing bubble in Mangakino

Mangakino township lies on the banks of Lake Maraetai.

The new hotspot for house-hungry Aucklanders is tiny Mangakino, built to house dam workers, and where homes cost as little as $150,000.

Mangakino, built almost 70 years ago as a temporary town for hydro-electric scheme workers, is the latest holiday hotspot for Aucklanders wanting a cheap bolthole from the rat race.

It's a long way from the beaches of the Coromandel or the stretches of exclusive real estate north of Auckland, but a great lifestyle and incredible real estate deals are encouraging out-of-towners to rapidly buy up in tiny central North Island town.

Prices for cottages with golf course or Lake Maraetai views usually started from $169,000.

Others were around the $140,000 to $150,000 mark, although a freehold cottage is on the market for $85,000.

Relatively low prices mean Aucklanders shut out of the city's red hot property market could find solace and, they hope, some financial security, at least as far as calling a two-bedroom former hydro-scheme cottage their own each weekend.

Century 21 Stevens Realty licensee Christine Stevens, an agent in Mangakino for 12 years, usually sells eight of the mostly 50 to 70sqm cottages a year. This year she's sold 23. "Mangakino has now been discovered. It may just be a little village but it's about breathing again."

Bayleys Taupo agent Jim Carder had about eight listings in Mangakino and had also noticed a sharp increase in interest in the town.

"People are realising it's a good, affordable holiday town.

"You've got boating, fishing, cycling and hunting, the skifields are close and there's affordable properties."

Mangakino, which has a permanent population of about 860, is a 40-minute drive from Taupo and an hour and a half to either Hamilton or the Mt Ruapehu skifields. It's three hours to Auckland.

Stevens said Wellingtonians were the first to start snapping up some of Mangakino's 660 cottages.

Her last three sales were to Aucklanders.

"Auckland has been the last to come in, but certainly Auckland is in."

Some weren't homeowners elsewhere before buying, either.

"I've got people who rent in Auckland. One used his KiwiSaver [as a deposit]," Stevens said.

"He couldn't afford Auckland.

"He comes down every weekend or second weekend. He wanted to be able to secure something of his own and he wasn't able to [in Auckland]."

Stevens said some buyers were retirees. Others could not afford to buy baches in popular holiday spots such as Taupo.

QV National spokeswoman Andrea Rush said their statistics did not show a significant spike in the number of sales in Mangakino over the past six months, compared to the last three years.

But values did appear to be increasing after a downward trend following the previous peak of 2007.

"Average values for Mangakino are under $150,000, so for a bach near the lake this is definitely a more affordable holiday home option than buying a lakeside property in Taupo or a seaside holiday home in Hahei or Pauanui on the Coromandel Peninsula.

"The ski resort town of Ohakune and coastal holiday town of Opononi in Northland [are] also relatively affordable places to buy a holiday home as values in these locations have also not recovered to levels seen in the previous peak of 2007.

"However, they are not quite as affordable as Mangakino."