- Luxury real estate agent Cam Winter reports a 600% increase in overseas enquiries for Queenstown properties.
- Interest from Poland and Ukraine suggests buyers are seeking refuge from conflict with Russia.
- Concerns grow over “ghost houses” as high net worth individuals buy holiday homes, and leave them vacant.
Foreign “gazillionaires”, including jet-setters from Poland and Ukraine, have their eyes on Queenstown real estate, says luxury real estate agent Cam Winter, of Oliver Road real estate.
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Winter told OneRoof his agency had, in the last two months, recorded a more than 600% increase in enquiries from overseas buyers, some of them from countries that rarely feature on the agency’s radar.
Interest from former Soviet bloc countries suggested buyers there wanted to get away from the conflict with Russia, Winter said.
“Previously we have not really heard much from these types of areas, but we’ve got a lot from Switzerland, a lot from Germany, Poland, Ukraine and, of course, the more obvious expected USA and UK and parts of Asia.”
Queenstown is attracting attention from all over the world. Photo / Getty Images
While people from countries like Poland and Ukraine were not looking in high numbers, Winter dubbed the ones who were as “gazillionaires”, saying they sat in “a whole different stratosphere of wealth and influence”.
Many would be looking to buy with the Active Investor Plus visa, following the Government’s loosening of the foreign buyer rules.
Winter, who recently picked up the best real estate agent award for New Zealand at the International Property Awards, said Queenstown offered the privacy and the high-quality builds high net worth buyers wanted, but noted that supply was tight, with owners often reluctant to sell, even if the price was right.
He said a recent approach on a piece of land worth around $10m resulted in the owner saying the price needed to be double that, and the owner of another property worth $30m-plus turned down interest, saying they had no reason to sell.
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Some of the owners were based overseas and had bought before the foreign buyer restrictions were introduced in 2018, and so were worried they would have to apply like anyone else for the new investor visa if they wished to buy again in New Zealand.
A lot of the high net worth owners only use their properties for part of the year. RNZ reported this week that there was renewed concern in Queenstown about the number of people buying holiday homes and leaving them empty for much of the year.
Former World Bank senior economist and Queenstown resident Ralph Hanan told RNZ the town was on track to be hollowed out unless authorities took strong action to build more affordable housing for workers.
Winter said Queenstown heaved with visitors all year round and had its challenges following Covid, but he believed the issue of affordable accommodation was separate from the luxury real estate market.
The conflict in Ukraine has been linked to an uptick in interest from Eastern European countries. Photo / Getty Images
Many of his clients were global citizens who spent some of their time in Queenstown, and while a lot did not offer short-term lets, they often had family and friends using their properties during the year.
While homes in Queenstown were left vacant for periods of time, the ones offered as high-end visitor accommodation brought in high net worth people and high spending into the local economy, he said.
And owners who did not offer short-term lets still paid workers thousands of dollars a month to look after their homes. “Affordable housing for [Queenstown’s] working population is and always will be an issue, but somebody buying a $20m home on Queenstown Hill or on the shores of Lake Hayes is not contributing to that issue.”
Two recent sales by Winter include a property in Dalefield on the shores of Lake Hayes that fetched close to $7m. The property took a year to sell and then sold to Australians, who are exempt from the foreign buyer ban.
Jef Desbecker and Robina Bodle’s lodge-style home and two-bedroom apartment, which sits on 6467sqm in Queenstown’s Lakes Hayes, fetched almost $7m. Photo / Supplied
The house was built to be Desbecker and Bodle’s retirement pad. Photo / Supplied
The property was built by adventurers Jef Desbecker and Robina Bodle, who share a passion for sustainable living. They built a lodge-style home to retire to but then decided they did not want to leave their Crown Range home.
The property was originally listed for nearly $8m, and Winter said it took a while to find the right market value. While the build was ultra-high in quality, it presented as a more rustic home, which put some buyers off.
“Buyers certainly prioritize more modern builds, not to say that that’s what everybody wants, but people typically either want to buy a home to which they want to do everything or nothing, basically.”
Properties that sat in the midpoint of everything or nothing were the more challenging ones to sell, Winter said.
This home also had a “particularly unique” layout as it was designed as pods, with people having to go outside to get to the main bedroom suite, though it was under cover: “You didn’t have to go fighting your way through the snow.”
There were two guest ensuites separate from the home and also a two-bedroom cottage.
Another Winter listing, the Car Stables, which was originally built to store art and classic cars, has been bought by a local couple. Photo / Supplied
Winter said the Australian buyer had connections to Queenstown and was encouraged by a friend to get into the market before it was too late.
He said the buyers had recognised the prime location with only a small handful of properties along that side of Lake Hayes able to access the lake without crossing a road, and not be subject to road noise.
Another recent sale was at Arrow Junction, where the vendors had bought their neighbour’s home for extra storage space for their art collection.
One of the owners told OneRoof in May they had transformed the 1ha property below their own home at the top of the Crown Range, carving off 26ha from their property and adding it to their neighbour’s plot to create a 27ha estate.
They built three new sheds, dubbing them “the car stables” which could fit 24 cars without stacking.
Winter said a local couple bought the property, which was “probably the most specific and the most unique of anything that we’ve sold. “It’s also an unusually magnificent property in that it has 25 hectares of beautiful native bush and a huge, big 40-metre waterfall in a historic gold mining area. Really cool.”
There had been steady enquiries from all sorts of people, including a charter school, commercial buyers and investors.
Winter does have some spectacular properties on his books, including a five-bedroom 360sqm house at 4 Fishermans Lane, in Mount Creighton, which has an asking price of $9.625m.
The design was driven by British-based designer Alex Willcock, whose work and home studio Kemps House has appeared in global design bibles such as the New York Times magazine and Harpers Bazaar.
The vendor is global business advisor and investor David Lawn who ran surf brand Rip Curl in Australia and launched yoga retailer Lululemon into Australasia, after stints with Country Road, Jeanswest and The Limited in the US.
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