Nearly 60 per cent of Auckland houses sold to foreign buyers went to Chinese investors, new data show.
The data released by Land Information New Zealand (Linz) yesterday showed that 474 out of 11,955 houses sold between January and March went to non-residents.
Of the sales to foreign buyers, 276 houses went to Chinese residents. The next biggest investors were Australians, with 45 properties.
Across all of New Zealand, 3 per cent of houses sold between January and March went to people who were not New Zealand citizens or holders of a residency, student or work visa.
Chinese tax residents snapped up 321 of those properties (29.5 per cent of non-resident purchases), followed by Australians on 312 properties (28.6 per cent).