Foreign property buyers shy away

Foreign buyers are shunning New Zealand investment property, their share of deals falling from a quarter of the market three years ago to just 8 per cent last year.

But the sector is picked to recover soon on the back of low interest rates and poor returns from other classes of investments.

Zoltan Moricz of CB Richard Ellis has just completed an investment transactions monitor tracking $5 million-plus deals. It shows that in the past five years, a quarter of all non-residential investment property deals went to foreign buyers but the numbers have since plummeted.

"There has been little interest by foreign buyers in 2008, with 89 per cent of the sales volume from local purchases, 8 per cent from foreign buyers and the rest undisclosed," Moricz found.

Last year, 63 per cent of buyers were private, 8 per cent unlisted real estate trusts, 7 per cent managed funds, 5 per cent syndicates, a further 5 per cent government sector, 4 per cent corporate, 2 per cent trustee and the rest unknown.

To read the full NZ Herald article click here

Posted: 11 Mar 2009

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