Foreign fears over-hyped: Alexander

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At most, 5.6% of New Zealand house sales go to foreign buyers who do not plan to live in this country, BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander says.

Thursday, March 14th 2013, 12:00AM 2 Comments

by The Landlord

He asked respondents to his regular BNZ-REINZ Residential Market Survey who was buying property.

He found that nationwide, 24% of sales are to first-home buyers, 19% to investors, and 9% to people offshore.

First-home buyers were the most dominant in Wellington, where they made up 32% of the market, compared to 23% in Auckland and 19% in Christchurch.

Of the foreign buyers, most were British (18%), followed by Chinese (15%) and Australian (14%).

Alexander says: “In Auckland the proportion of sales to people living offshore is 11%. Of that 19% are to people living in China, 18% the UK, and 15% Australia. That means just 2.1% of Auckland house sales are to people living in China, 2% to people in the UK, and 1.7% to people in Australia.”

He said the survey results did not back up anecdotes about Auckland properties being snapped up by Chinese buyers.

“Also, agents note that nationwide at least 69% of buyers from the UK plan shifting to NZ, 37% of buyers in China plan doing so, and 51% of buyers in Australia also plan to shift here. Taken all up that means at most 5.6% (but perhaps as low as 4%) of all dwelling sales are to people offshore not planning to shift to NZ.”

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