Buyer surge before ban bites
The foreign buyer ban could drive prices up as non-residents rush to market, according to a Hamilton real estate agent.
But economists said it comes as no surprise. Of course people were going to clamour into the market before being bogged down in bureaucracy.
Lodge Real Estate sales consultant Cathy O’Shea said buyers are flooding the market at the same time there is a bottleneck of supply.
‘‘Foreign buyers are trying to grab anything they can,’’ O’Shea said. ‘‘They are putting in offers ‘site unseen’ on land and property.’’
In Hamilton, there are about 600 listings in the residential and lifestyle sectors – enough for 2 months of sales. It’s not enough, O’Shea said. With five families moving to Hamilton each week – two from Auckland, O’Shea said – there should be at least 3 months supply.
‘‘It’s pandemonium,’’ she said.
But Harcourts Hamilton general manager Brian King – straight out of a successful auction – said he hasn’t seen the panic.
‘‘We certainly haven’t seen any panic buying from overseas people but we’ve always dealt with a fairly strong, multicultural market anyway,’’ King said.
Hot critic of the foreign buyer ban bill, The New Zealand Initiative chief economist Dr Eric Crampton, said panic buying was entirely expected from both overseas buyers and New Zealand-based, nonresidents.
‘‘I know if I was here on a work visa, I would be rushing as hard as I could to be purchasing a house in advance of that ban so that I wouldn’t have to deal with any of that nonsense afterwards,’’ Crampton said. In June, Stats NZ data showed 3.3 per cent of house ownership transfers in the March quarter were to non-citizens or nonresidents – up from 2.9 per cent in the December 2017 quarter. ‘‘Foreign buyers don’t make up a big proportion of the total so this is a bit more marginal, around the edges, but certainly, I think people on the ground will notice a difference or two in the next month before that ban hits,’’ said Infometrics economist Brad Olsen.