The stream of Aucklanders heading to the northern reaches of the city has created a property boom for Warkworth, pushing house prices way up. The town and its prices appeal to first-home buyers as well as retirees and investors.

The latest OneRoof Valocity figures show that the town's median value has tipped over $1 million (to $1.06m), up a whopping 28 percent in the past 12 months. Buyers with budgets under $700,000 would struggle to find anything but the roughest do-up property, perhaps a 1980s house on a quarter-share cross-lease section.

An 80sqm three-bedroom do-up 1950s house at 28 Bertram Street on a 796sqm recently sold for $951,000. The same house sold in 2017 at the peak of the market for $650,000. Pre-covid you would have expected to have paid somewhere in the $700,000s. Prices are going up $50,000 to $100,000 a month.

The growing work opportunities in the town, including around Mahurangi College, new big box stores, improved public transport and the opening of the Pūhoi to Warkworth motorway link which will improve travel times, is luring citysiders to the country town. Auckland Council plans see the town as a major growth hub and project that Warkworth will have a population of 25,000 by 2030.