Covid crushes foreign market: Just NZ 100 homes sold to overseas buyers

Figures released by Stats NZ confirm that the number of houses sold in during lockdown fell 30 per cent from the same period last year.

Property transfers measured for April, May and June reached only 26,000, down from 38,000 in the same June quarter last year, the lowest quarter since Stats NZ began measuring in 2016.

Property statistics manager Dave Adair points out that the proportion of overseas buyers was steady at 0.4 percent, falling in line with the drop in total home transfers. In June quarter that meant only 100 sales to people without New Zealand citizenship or resident visas.

Most of those sales in the year to June were in the Auckland inner city local board area of Waitemata, where foreigners bought 195 homes (5.2 percent). Over three percent of Queenstown Lakes sales were to foreigners, 57 properties in the year.

While total home transfers fell 30 percent nationally, Auckland dropped by only 23 percent in the June quarter. The biggest drop was in Gisborne, falling 39 percent.

Stats NZ does not produce a measure of the net change in property owned by overseas people. It adds that the 2108 Overseas Investment Amendment Act permits buying by Australians and Singaporeans. Some new homes, particularly apartment developments are also exempted.

“Apartments bought off the plans might not be transferred to an overseas buyer until construction is complete years after the contract was signed,” says Adair.

Stats NZ also clarify that a transfer is not the same as a sale, as transfers also involve such things as marriage settlements, boundary changes, trustee changes, and changes in the share of ownership.