This Ōkura lifestyle property was sold this year to a Chinese buyer for $6.4m. Photo / Paterson Luxury
This Ōkura lifestyle property was sold this year to a Chinese buyer for $6.4m. Photo / Paterson Luxury
An Auckland real estate agent, specialising in $3.5 million-plus homes, says the immigration surge is driving demand for more expensive property, with the Ukraine war cited by one European buyer as a reason for migrating.
Caleb Paterson, the director of the new real estate agency Paterson Luxury, launched this month,said he’s increasingly dealing with people from Belgium, Germany, Britain, South Africa, China and Singapore.
Foreigners want to buy homes here, he said, for a variety of reasons including the pandemic, the Ukraine war and providing a safer country for their children.
“I asked people from Europe why they wanted to relocate their family to New Zealand. They said our political stability and their desire to get as far away from the war as possible was what made them shift. They needed certainty for their family, a safe environment and they wanted the quality of lifestyle,” he said.
Their two children were of high school age, he said.
His comments follow Stats NZ releasing figures showing New Zealand had an annual 65,400 net migration gain in the March year.
Paterson cited one sale he made in 2021 of a Dairy Flat property for $6.65m, sold by Kiwis to Kiwis originally from China. That house has glass walls between its living room and garage with a Porsche and Ferrari the homeowner took great pride in.
It’s those top-end home styles that many foreigners want, Paterson said.
“Around half the interest in $3.5m-plus homes we’ve sold since January is from international buyers, either planning to apply for residency or already with New Zealand residency,” he said.
Paterson Luxury, whose offices are at Silverdale, launched on June 13. Paterson previously ran Telos Group, the name being Greek for end purpose or goal.
He has sold six properties to people from overseas since January 1: a $6.4m Ōkura lifestyle block to a buyer from China, a $5.9m Dairy Flat property to a Belgian buyer, a $4m property near Hobsonville to a British buyer, an Orewa house for just under $4m to a Chinese buyer, a $3.2m smaller Dairy Flat lifestyle block to a Kiwi who was originally German but left that country 25 years ago and a $3m Auckland house to a South African buyer.
All were sold by Telos, which Paterson’s wife Bianca Paterson is now running.
Asked how he got listings for those six properties, he said he had been working as an agent for six years, having left Bayleys in 2018 when he opened Telos.
Of the six deals, five buyers had new residency visas at the time they bought, he said.
Asked how the overseas buyers dealt with our foreign buyer ban, Paterson said: “They need to get New Zealand residency to be able to purchase.” The foreign buyer ban doesn’t apply to Australians or Singaporeans.
Foreigners’ applications for residence might be based on factors that included committing to spending $10m on investments here, he said.
Caleb Paterson of new real estate agency Paterson Luxury, which was launched on June 13. Photo / Paterson Luxury
But not everyone is able to buy New Zealand properties. He cited one of a buyer from Africa who first struck problems but then overcame them.
“We had one international client who had tried to get an investor’s visa where he was willing to spend $10 million on property and was going to launch a large business in NZ. He waited nine months to get through and got knocked back every time.
“He then got fed up and put in a skilled worker visa application. Two weeks later he got access and didn’t have to spend any money setting up a business. I am hearing these stories all the time at the moment,” he says.
Paterson Luxury is marketing a property in Waiteitei, near Wellsford, for $5m, as well as a number of other multi-million-dollar homes in the Auckland region.
Real Estate Institute data shows 138 luxury residencies and mansions valued at $512m have been sold since the start of this year in the Auckland region, Paterson said. He had studied the REINZ data to get that number.
REINZ figures show the market peaked in late 2021 and had declined markedly since then.
On June 15, Satish Ranchhod, a Westpac senior economist, said that while the level of sales remains low, volumes had risen in each of the past three months.
Taking a bigger picture, he told the Herald how we’d already hit the bottom of the market four months ago, in February this year.
“Nationwide, we saw average house prices drop 17 per cent between November 2021 and February 2023. Since February, nationwide house prices have risen by an average of 0.4 per cent, so prices are roughly where they were at the start of 2021,” he said.
In an analysis of the May REINZ data, Ranchhod said sales volume increases had been spread across regions, with sharper turns in Auckland and Wellington.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 23 years, having won many awards, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
