- 29% of New Zealand’s priciest properties remain unavailable to golden visa buyers.
- The $5m threshold channels foreign investment towards Auckland and Queenstown-Lakes, where qualifying listings dominate.
- Experts propose a $2m or $3m regional threshold, retaining $5m in Auckland and Otago.
About a third of New Zealand’s most expensive properties are still off limits to foreign buyers, prompting calls to lower the $5 million threshold in the country’s cheaper regions.
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New research by Bayleys Real Estate has found that 29% of the country’s most expensive properties remain out of bounds to buyers with the Active Investor Plus visa – the so-called golden visa.
Under the AIP scheme, foreign investors are allowed to buy a New Zealand property worth $5m or more, but only if it isn’t deemed sensitive – e.g. on waterfront land – or is less than 5ha.
Bayleys analysed 650 residential and lifestyle listings in June with a search price of $5m and above. Twenty per cent of properties were on non-urban land that exceeded 5ha; 11% were in marine or coastal areas; and 3% exceeded the land area thresholds on islands. Some properties crossed over multiple criteria.
So far, 25 properties have been bought through the AIP scheme, the majority in Auckland and Queenstown-Lakes.
Bayleys head of insights Chris Farhi says the $5m threshold should be lowered to $2m or $3m outside of Auckland and Otago. Photo / Fiona Goodall
Bayleys head of insights Chris Farhi said: “At the moment you’ve got a good amount of activity in Auckland and Queenstown. Prices in those two markets are higher than other parts of New Zealand, and you’ve also got a pretty good selection of land that’s not sensitive. But when you get into the other regions, not only are there fewer listings above $5m, but they are more likely to be deemed sensitive.”
Farhi said the concern was that the golden visa rules steered buyers to the two most expensive cities and that there was an argument to drop the price threshold in the other regions.
While overseas buyers could still apply to buy sensitive properties, he said they were required to jump through a lot more hoops.
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Farhi suggested the price threshold remain at $5m for Otago and Auckland, but be lowered to $2m or $3m elsewhere. “Otherwise, we are just going to see investors clustered in Auckland or Queenstown.”
Separate analysis by OneRoof found the vast majority of $5m-plus residential listings published this year were in Auckland (324 out of a total of 463). The next biggest concentration was in Otago (78), specifically Queenstown-Lakes. Only seven other regions had $5m listings, but not in great numbers. Bay of Plenty had 21, Canterbury 13 and Waikato 11, with $5m listings in Northland, Wellington, Hawke’s Bay and Marlborough all in single digits.
Property Brokers managing director Guy Mordaunt said overseas buyers were interested in purchasing property in regional New Zealand but $5m homes were thin on the ground, with $3m buying a “hell of a lot of house” in most of the patches the agency operated.
“I’m in Palmy [Palmerston North], and the record sale price here is $3.7m,” he said. “Don’t even get me started on Taumarunui, Wairoa or Waimate. That’s why people live in those places; you spend $1.5m, and you’ve got a mansion with a pool and a tennis court.”
Mordaunt said his vendors would certainly support a move that would bring in more buyers.
“We always think the provinces get forgotten. I have no idea if it’s going to stimulate growth, but I think it probably would. If it’s going to stimulate growth in the regions, then we are going to be supportive of it, aren’t we?”
Recent changes around technicalities and minor issues mean golden visa holders can soon buy houses like 4 Fishermans Lane, in Bendemeer, Queenstown. Photo / Supplied
Oliver Road managing director Cam Winter, whose agency sells real estate in the Bay of Plenty and Central Otago, said there were pros and cons to lowering the threshold in certain areas.
“At the moment, yes, it’s a blunt instrument, but the alternative would be very tricky to decide, calculate and police. But at the same time, if you want to distribute some of those wealthier people around the country, then they should look at that.”
Winter said there was a good reason properties on sensitive land remained out of bounds to overseas buyers, but he welcomed the recent exemption for properties previously ruled out because of a technical or minor issue.
This was great news for properties in Bendemeer Estate, near Lake Hayes in Queenstown, which he believed had been unfairly deemed sensitive.
An example is a 3820sqm property he is selling at 4 Fishermans Lane in Bendemeer Estate for $9.625m.
Winter said he received four offers from overseas buyers not long after the AIP rules came into force in March, but they weren’t allowed because it was inside the much larger Bendemeer Estate.
Winter said this change would increase the number of properties available to golden visa holders.
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