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International buyers are snatching up New Zealand property as the dollar drops, banks lower interest rates and the market reaches realistic prices.
Alistair Helm of realestate.co.nz says the surge is encouraging for sellers and indicates an "interesting time" in the property market.
Last year 22 per cent of realestate.co.nz's browsers were from outside New Zealand. This figure crept up to 25 per cent around April and May this year and is now up to 27 per cent, Helm says.
Most of the interested buyers are from Britain, Australia and the United States.
Auckland real estate agent Ross Brader says the properties he listed online started to attract record numbers of international browsers on August 10, when the Kiwi dollar dropped to the lowest level in 11 months.
A three-bedroom Pt Chevalier home going for $799,000 listed on the realestate.co.nz website last week attracted about 2000 views in eight days and half of these were from overseas, including 184 browsers from Britain, 172 from the US and 99 from Australia. "It's been quite surprising," Brader says.
His office covers the Western suburbs of Pt Chevalier, Westmere and Grey Lynn, and overseas buyers tell Brader they are attracted to the area's coastal lifestyle, good amenities and proximity to the city.
Brader says buyers from Britain tell him they are moving to New Zealand for a "better quality of life".
The weakening British housing market and the current exchange rate have also prompted the decision.
Boutique agent Michael Boulgaris says prices for top-end property in New Zealand are now at realistic levels and this has sparked the surge in international interest.
"Because the American economy is so tough at the moment a lot of people - buyers and investors - are focusing on New Zealand," Boulgaris says. "The expats are definitely coming back. It is in their best interests to make a move now."
Over the past month he has seen an offer just short of $5 million from an expat, another interested buyer from Dubai offering $1m for a property he had not yet visited and another $2m offer from a Singapore buyer who had still to see the site.
The number of website browsers is increasing month on month but there has been a notable surge as the New Zealand exchange rate becomes more attractive to overseas buyers, Boulgaris says.
Helm says that overseas buyers are in a good negotiating position because there is a surplus of supply.
"If our dollar begins to drop as it is, then our property begins to look more attractive."
Median prices may have dropped in Auckland but remain stable across most of the rest of New Zealand. Helm says it seems overseas buyers are motivated by what they want to buy into and for the lifestyle change, rather than what the market is doing.
"They're not buying a stock or a share, they are buying it for what it is," he says.
Bayleys real estate held an immigration expo in Johannesburg, South Africa, last month and has since received more than 70 direct inquiries about buying residential and commercial properties in New Zealand.
Managing director Mike Bayley says the interested buyers made comments about feeling comfortable with the New Zealand way of life and culture, particularly the rugby, barbecues and beach lifestyle, and were attracted to the safety of New Zealand's cities compared to Johannesburg and Cape Town.
"We have also seen a resurgence in commercial property inquiries out of Southeast Asia - particularly Singapore and Hong Kong," says Bayley.
In July and August, Bayleys held two New Zealand property exhibitions in Singapore to promote residential apartment investments.
Bayley says: "We have seen a resurgence in interest in commercial property out of Asia, which has for the most part been absent for the past six to eight years. Reasons for this include a weakening New Zealand currency, the fact New Zealand is seen as a relatively safe haven among global economic and political uncertainty, our attractive legal and business environment, and an absence of capital gains tax and stamp duty."
The company is targeting two immigration expos in England in October.
Bayley says the company has a database of about 7000 people who have registered an interest in immigrating to New Zealand, mostly generated from previous immigration expos in Britain.
'Ecstatic' to come back
Mother-of-two Bronwyn Carr moved her family to New Zealand from America in June.
Her children are now 9 and 4 and Carr decided it was the right time to move them out of the US, where she had lived for seven years, to be closer to their cousins.
New Zealand's sliding property market wasn't a driving factor in the move but it did work in the family's favour.
"We knew the New Zealand market had been very high and it was dropping like a stone."
Carr and her Australian husband were looking for a family home to settle in for the next 25 years and they had a set budget.
But Carr says she initially struggled to find homes she liked as only vendors who had to sell had listed their properties, and speculative buyers had chosen to hold on to their properties through the slump.
In the end, Carr did find what she was looking for and put in an offer which was at the top of her range, but less than what the owners had paid two years ago.
Carr says after 13 years abroad she is "ecstatic" to be back and pleased to have bought into the market when she did.
