This week has seen some interesting “piggybacking” of property related stories which have captured the interest of political parties and journalists alike. I think there is value in outlining some facts regarding these articles.
The first article to appear was in The Herald on Sunday entitled “Overseas buyers home in” – I was asked to comment for this article which had its origins in some investigative journalism into recent sales of property to overseas buyers in some parts of Auckland. The article drew heavily on the input of real estate agents (take note of that – it becomes relevant later!). I provided some statistics to this article on the relative growth in visitors to the website from overseas – specifically the UK, Australia and the USA. All three of which have been a key part of our traffic for many years.
The scale of the growth was reflected in the fact that in the space of 12 months our international traffic had risen from 22% to 27% of our total. Remember these statistics are just for website visitors. We have no way of knowing the identity, intent or circumstances of any of these visitors! – for all we know they could be overseas school students doing a project or elderly grandparents viewing prospective new homes for their overseas grand children. There would need to be fair number of these as our weekly overseas visitors often exceed 30,000.
Following that article the Green Party put out a press release entitled “Speculators could shut out first time buyers” – the premise being that NZ was being invaded by thousands of speculative property investors who were having a catastrophic effect on our housing market; and the government should act now to restrict purchasing of property by non – New Zealander’s.
The question is – where are all these sales to overseas buyers? – the current level of sales is at the lowest for well over a decade and a half and prices are at best stagnant and worst on the way down.
Anyway the story has continued with today an article from the Waikato Times entitled “Foreign invasion – just a myth say real estate agents” – if the tuth be told, there was no invasion in the first place! and the original article came from real estate agents!
The key fact though to bear in mind from this piggybacking is just how local real estate is – whereas Hamilton may not have seen any overseas buyers, some parts and sectors of the Auckland market may well have. To make generalised statements that the market is doing this or doing that is always going to be open to interpretation simply because every real estate market is a unique set of individual properties driven by unique circumstances and distinct groups of people.
An alterntaive view could be that we are in a lull in news that preceeds an election and as ever stories of property and speculation as to the state of the market capture readers attention.
Hi Alistair,
So to make it clear:
You are not a real estate agent.
You are not a representative of the REINZ (as at least one agent thinks).
You are not a journalist.
You are not a politician.
You must be a great bloke then
After reading comments around this I did a quick search for “overseas”, and noticed quite a few adverts saying that the sellers were going overseas or were overseas owners who were selling.
So I guess there is a flow in both directions.
Steve
Just as with any open democratic country – talent moves in both directions. As to your confirmation of your statements – thanks!
I was interviewed for the story that appeared. Because none of my Remuera buyers bought from “overseas” the journalist chose to highlight a family I referred to them who had bought in Remuera recently having just returned from an extended stint in the USA. The family searched the internet from the USA mainly out of curiosity and for research purposes. When they arrived and eventually bought here, they sought the agents who had the properties that appealed to them, worked with them, then bought. Interestingly, I’m about to sell to a UK based buyer who searches the net religiously then asks his Auckland based brother to look at properties that appeal to him. Although the net attracted him, the house he’s about to buy isn’t on the net yet. From my persective, being on the net is important to attract local and international buyers, but there is certainly no surge coming from overseas.
Steve
Valuable input – thanks
Coming from the states that is exactly how I used the site – research only.
Buying in NZ with a US or English salary does seem attractive from a distance. But landing here (ChCh) and getting a better sense of local wages and mortgage rates, housing prices still seem less than attractive. When a buyer can spend 30 percent of pre-tax household income on housing costs (assuming also 20% down) then that is a normal market. Until then the fundamentals are off beat.