US investors are among a wide range of foreigners who have snapped up New Zealand dairy properties in recent years.

United States investors bought the most New Zealand dairy land in 2013 and 2014, with Chinese buyers lagging well behind.

US investors bought 15,404 ha in five separate transactions, spending $78.9 million.

But for the two years, the Overseas Investment Office gave approval for only one Chinese purchase, by Synlait Farms (now called Purata) which bought 11 freehold farms totalling 3305 hectares.

The total amount bought by buyers of all nationalities over the two years was 28,312 ha, at a cost of $297m.

However, for a number of the transactions, the amount spent was confidential.

Consulting company KPMG prepared the analysis. Partner Justin Ensor admitted the two year snapshot did not provide a complete picture, although it showed there was a good spread of countries in the market.

There were buyers from 12 countries, and one category described as "various overseas" which did not identify any country.

"There is a widespread perception that it's a thin market – comprised of Chinese and Hong Kong investors - who are buying New Zealand dairy land. In reality, though, the market has a broad base of investors," Ensor said.

By land area, the biggest investors after the US and China were Sweden, New Zealand (local companies with foreign partners), the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland and Italy.

Americans were the biggest spenders on dairy land at $78.9 million for the two years, followed by Chinese who spent $63m.

Next were New Zealand buyers ($32.7m) and UK ($32.1m).

Ensor said the motivation behind doing the analysis was because a European investor had informed KPMG that he felt if he bought dairy land "the only exit was to Chinese or Hong Kong investors".

The number of different nationalities involved in buying showed this was not the case, Ensor said.