Property listings claiming New Zealanders are ‘leaving on a jet plane’ or have ‘left and are not coming back’ are on the rise as homeowners are increasingly being lured across the ditch for better paying jobs, more affordable homes and good weather.
There are more than 40 property listings currently on OneRoof that give moving to Australia as the reason for selling their home. And agents told OneRoof there are plenty more vendors who are Aussie-bound but have decided not to advertise that fact in their marketing campaign.
Lodge Real Estate managing director Jeremy O’Rourke says the number of cases where moving to Australia is the main motivator for the sale and the vendor wants it advertised as such is much higher now than a year ago.
“They are saying ‘I’m moving, I’m out, I’m telling you I’m seriously for sale because I want to skip this country’ – that’s a reasonably high proportion.”
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O’Rourke says moving to Australia is now just as common a reason for selling a property as upsizing, downsizing, divorce and death, which are all the main reasons people sell in any market. “We’ve just never seen as many people considering it as we are seeing now.”
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Real estate salespeople asked to do appraisals are hearing time and time again that people are worried about the rising crime, how everything is so expensive and see Australia as a better alternative, he says.
Harcourts salesperson Diego Traglia has sold about 20 properties so far this year where the owners have moved to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane or the Gold Coast, and he has two more on the market at the moment.
A four-bedroom, one-bathroom home at 719 Scenic Drive, in Henderson Valley, and a three-bedroom home at 53b Springs Road, in Parakai, are both for sale because the owners are off to Australia. “Australia Called, They Answered!”, reads the headline for the Springs Road listing.
Traglia says there has been a steady flow all year of people moving across the ditch and about 50% of the time at least one of them has a job lined up.
“I don’t know if it’s because there have been less than 10 days of sunshine in 2023, or they’ve just had enough of the work environment and politics and all of that.”
The owners of a four-bedroom home on Scenic Drive, Henderson Valley, are ditching Auckland for Melbourne. Photo / Supplied
Harcourts agent Diego Traglia has sold about 20 houses this year where the owners were moving across the ditch. Photo / Fiona Goodall
Harcourt Mount Roskill business owner Nick Kochhar says people are sick of waiting for something to change in New Zealand and have decided to move to Australia because houses are more affordable and they can have a much smaller mortgage.
“A million dollars – you can’t get anything here nowadays. A good piece of land is hard to find.”
A two-bedroom unit in Papatoetoe sold last month for $830,000, whereas Kochhar’s brother picked up a property in Brisbane for $480,000 on a 500sqm section.
The pay is also significantly better and some organisations are even offering to pay moving costs to skilled IT workers, he says.
Australia’s Queensland Police Service this week launched an aggressive campaign trying to lure Kiwis over by offering a $20,000 relocation bonus, a bigger salary and “300 days of sunshine a year”.
Some people sell before they board the plane, while others rent out their properties until they are sure it’s the right move, and there are also those who wait until their mortgage comes off its fixed term before putting it on the market.
Harcourts Glenfield agent David Ding is selling a house at 45 Condor Place in Unsworth Heights on behalf of owners who moved to Brisbane for work at the end of last year.
This two-bedroom unit at 26a Biplane Place is for sale because the owners have moved to Australia and have no plans to move back. Photo / Supplied.
While a two-bedroom, one-bathroom townhouse at 28a Biplane Street, in Takanini, priced at $630,000 is also for sale because the owners are already in Australia and, according to Harcourts listing agents Alex Dunn and Ammy Multani, are not coming back.
It’s a similar situation for 4/1 Rebecca Rise, in Weymouth, whose owners are also in Australia and, according to the listing, are looking for an urgent sale to relieve financial pressure.
Ding first noticed the exodus in July last year and says it continued throughout 2022 and into early 2023.
“We might have some pioneers go there and think this is good and talk to their friends and the snowball effect is getting bigger and bigger and faster.”
However, he thinks people may now be holding off until the outcome of the general election as he hasn’t noticed as many sellers moving to Australia since April.
Ding says Brisbane and the Gold Coast are the main places people move to followed by Adelaide and Perth.
One of his clients who is a nurse sold her Glenfield property for about $900,000 and bought a house in Adelaide for about $500,000, which means she is now mortgage-free. She is only a 15-minute commute to work in traffic and earns 30% more.
Housing affordability, employment and better school choice seem to be the main reasons rather than to be near family.
Kiwi Mortgages mortgage adviser Jatinder Singh says Kiwis are always moving to Australia, but there seems to be a lot more now.
CoreLogic chief property economist Kelvin Davidson says the number of New Zealanders leaving is on the rise, but they are far outweighed by the number of new residents arriving in the country.
And while people are selling to leave, he says, there may be the same amount or more people coming in potentially looking to buy at some point in the future once they get their residency. However, he adds the timing may not match up because those leaving could be homeowners selling and those coming into the country may have to rent before considering that available stock.
