Foreign buyers have honed in on central Auckland this year.

New data shows that in the June quarter, 22 per cent of home transfers – that includes sales and other transfers of ownership – in the Waitemata ward, central Auckland, were to people who were not citizens or holders of a residency visa.

That equates to 321 transfers and is up from 19 per cent in the March 2018 quarter.

CHRIS GORMAN/STUFF There were at least 321 sales in the Waitemata ward of central Auckland, in the June quarter, that would probably be stopped by the looming foreign buyers ban.

"In the Auckland inner city, over one in five home transfers were to overseas people in the latest quarter, and only 45 per cent were to New Zealand citizens," Stats NZ property statistics manager Melissa McKenzie said.

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It comes as the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill is working its way to becoming law, restricting the ability for non-resident and non-citizens to buy residential property in New Zealand.

SUPPLIED Gareth Kiernan says identifying what makes a "foreign" buyer is not straightforward.

Nationwide, the data shows 78 per cent of home transfers involved at least one buyer who was a New Zealand citizen.

Another 8 per cent had at least one resident-visa-holder. That is a relatively high proportion - 13,856 people arrived on this visa last year.

Another 2.8 per cent were people with a student or work visa, or no residency visa at all. These are the people who will be affected by the new ban.

Who's buying our houses? Note, corporate entities could have foreign or Kiwi owners.

The other 11 per cent were to corporate entities which might be owned by New Zealand or foreign buyers.

Economist Shamubeel Eaqub said it could be expected some corporates were overseas buyers. "But not all of it. Even then the maximum to overseas buyers is under 15 per cent."

It was not surprising to see foreign buyer activity concentrated on Auckland and Queenstown, he said.

"The share of home transfers to overseas people fell from 3.3 per cent last quarter to 2.8 percent this quarter," McKenzie said.



"However, the number of home transfers to overseas people rose from 1083 in the March 2018 quarter to 1116 in the June quarter."

The total number of home transfers in New Zealand increased to 39,627 in the June 2018 quarter.

Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan said a key problem was how a "foreigner" was defined.

"The 'no NZ citizen/resident visa' category is certainly the tidiest definition of a foreigner, as these are people who can't stay in New Zealand indefinitely.

"The intentions of people who have gained residency is harder to gauge given the speculated use of NZ residency as a back-door means to gain entry to Australia."

He said 89 per cent of people who were given residency in 2011/2012 were still in the country five years later, an 80 per cent increase in retention from a decade earlier.

"If almost 90 per of people granted residency stay for five years or longer, you wouldn't want to deny that group the right to buy a house…Perhaps of more interest is the 'corporate' category. We have no idea what makes up that group and how much it might be affected by the impending ban."

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