New Zealand’s luxury property market has seen dramatic changes this century.
Jetloads of international billionaires, Hollywood directors and Silicon Valley escapees are among those who touched down then put down buckets of money to secure slices of God’s Own, with prices rising from mere millions to multimillions.
You’ll find the mega rich enjoying the rugged mountain scenery of Queenstown, playing in the deep blue of the Bay of Islands and drinking the finest of wine on Waiheke Island.
In the last 20 years the country has gone from being perceived as isolated, dull and sleepy (remember the “I went to New Zealand but it was closed” jokes) to a sought-after adventure playground and safe haven for the rich and famous.
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Queenstown has transformed from a gold mining town with few visitors to being dubbed the “adventure tourism capital of the world” and is now open winter and summer.
The Bay of Islands features a burgeoning sprawling family compound property market for the mega wealthy and Waiheke Island, about 18 km from Auckland central, has moved from being the domain of hippies to being described in a recent Vogue article as “the Hamptons” of Auckland boasting dozens of vineyards.
While the 2000s saw an increase in the number of international elite who call New Zealand home, or who at least boast a multimillion dollar holiday home here, that has slowed to a trickle since the Government brought in its foreign buyer ban.
Some of the names already here are well-known, though.
Hollywood film director James Cameron, of films like Avatar and The Terminator, owns a slice of the Wairarapa and mega-movie star Tom Cruise is reported to be looking for a luxury property in the South Island, albeit as a rental.
Peter Thiel, the billionaire Facebook investor and creator of Paypal, owns a slice of Wanaka lakefront and other property.
New York hedge-fund pioneer and billionaire philanthropist Julian Robertson has luxury lodges at Kauri Cliffs near the Bay of Islands and Cape Kidnappers in Hawkes Bay which both feature world-class golf courses.
He also owns Matakauri Lodge outside Queenstown and was last year given the go-ahead to buy waterfront land on Waiheke Island where it’s said he has plans for another luxury lodge.
Another billionaire owning a bit of New Zealand paradise is the Russian steel magnate Alexander Abramov whose “bach” at Helena Bay in Northland was estimated to cost more than $50m to build and which even has its own mini power station.
US tech billionaire and New Zealand citizen Peter Thiel owns several properties around New Zealand. Photo / Getty Images
Along with the well-known names are other mega-wealthy people from Silicon Valley who are said to view New Zealand as a bolthole from the dangers of the rest of the world.
Last year The New Yorker reported Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, as saying at least 50 per cent of Silicon Valley billionaires had acquired some type of “apocalypse” insurance, and some of that was property in New Zealand.
“Saying you’re ‘buying a house in New Zealand’ is kind of a wink, wink, say no more,” he is quoted as saying.
Not all the mega wealthy are foreigners, of course. New Zealand has plenty of its own – the latest NBR Rich List, released in August, revealed there are now nine New Zealand billionaires and five billionaire families.
“There are many, many, many more people that you’ve never heard of who can afford to have a $10m or $20m house,” says Auckland luxury real estate agent Graham Wall.
US director James Cameron filming his sci-fi epic Avatar with actress Sigourney Weaver. Cameron owns property in Wairarapa.
Wall thinks the luxury property market really took off in the early 2000s in a post-9/11 world.
“I think after that massive terrorism event, that was probably when people started looking at New Zealand as an alternative rather than just a place to shoot a video and catch a trout, says Wall, who has sold a plethora of expensive mansions in the 19 or so years since he ventured into real estate.
“That’s when articles started appearing talking about New Zealand as a safe paradise; the safest place on earth.”
The early 2000s were also the start of sophistication in this country, he thinks.
New Zealand became known as the place to get great coffee and wine, and our film industry boomed with the likes of Xena: Warrior Princess becoming an international hit in the second half of the 1990s and Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy putting our landscapes in cinemas around the world in the early 2000s.
As the world opened its eyes to New Zealand, so did New Zealanders, says Wall.
“I reckon New Zealanders got over their self-consciousness and started to look around and go ‘hey, what we’ve got here is pretty damned special.
One of the Auckland mansions that the Sultan of Brunei bought in the 1990s.
“That coincided with sophisticated, international people turning up and then our property market, which was probably massively under-priced, just sort of caught up to where it should be.”
Wall looks back on a visit by the Sultan of Brunei as epitomizing extravagance at the turn of the century.
The Sultan came to Auckland for APEC in 1999 but instead of booking a hotel he “bought a bunch of mansions” in Herne Bay.
A few years later Wall sold a bunch of those mansions for the grand sum of $35 million.
That hit the headlines because it seemed a lot of money at the time: “It really wasn’t because there were, like, 12 properties.”
The most expensive home sold in New Zealand: 56 Paritai Drive, Auckland, fetched $39 million.
Less than a year ago Wall sold a single property in nearby 15 Cremorne Street in Herne Bay for $27.5m which is not that far off what the Sultan paid for 12 properties.
Wall also sold what he says is still the most expensive house sale in New Zealand. 56 Paritai Drive, built by former Hanover co-owner Mark Hotchin, fetched $39m in 2013.
That house now has a CV of $45m and Wall says if it was for sale again though he couldn’t sell to a foreign buyer he would be able find a New Zealand buyer even at that price.
New Zealand is still perceived as attractive to foreigners, though more difficult to buy in.
This year Andrew Hay, the global head of residential for Knight Frank, which puts out the annual Wealth Report, said New Zealand offers the lifestyle and investment environment that everyone globally wants.
“It offers security, safety, rule of law, strong property title, English language, the highest quality environmental standards, an excellent climate and quality of life, excellent restaurants and a healthy food culture.”
