There was a dramatic slide in the number of homes sold to overseas buyers last year, according to the latest figures from Statistics NZ.

These show just 0.4% of residential property transfers throughout the country were to overseas owners in the fourth quarter of last year, down from 2.3% in the same quarter of 2018.

In the Auckland region, where activity by foreign buyers has traditionally been greatest, transfers to overseas owners dropped to 0.6% in the fourth quarter of last year from 4.9% in the fourth quarter of 2018.

One of the biggest falls was in Auckland's Waitemata Ward, which includes leafy city fringe suburbs such as Herne Bay, where the percentage of homes transferred to overseas owners dropped to 4.0% in Q4 2019 from 13.7% in Q4 2018.

The figures also show that overseas owners are selling twice as many New Zealand residential properties than they are buying.

In the fourth quarter of last year overseas buyers purchased 147 residential properties (down from 885 a year earlier) but sold 333 over the same period (down from 414 a year earlier), suggesting they are net sellers by a substantial margin.

However the figures may not provide an accurate reflection of activity by overseas buyers because they do not include sales where the purchaser was a company, and it is extremely common for investors, whether based in this country or overseas, to use a company structure to buy property assets.

The figures also do not include sales made to a trust where at least one trustee is a New Zealand citizen, and most trusts are likely to have a New Zealand-based accountant or lawyer as a trustee, even if the settlor or beneficiaries are overseas.

And of course the figures are unlikely to capture sales where an overseas person provides financial backing for a purchase which is made through a local associate such as a family member who is a New Zealand citizen or resident.

So the figures are likely to have so many gaps in them they are probably not an accurate reflection of total overseas buyer activity and should be treated with caution, if not outright scepticism.

The comment stream on this story is now closed.