To NZ homes

back overseas.

‘‘It’s probably a mix, a 50-50 mix, we’ve also experienced properties that have been purchased sight unseen,’’ Haley said.

He was aware of a Londonbased Kiwi who bought a fourbedroom house in Ilam without seeing it.

Haley said during level 4 and level 3, Bayleys processed about 30 offshore inquiries, but the spike had ‘‘gone off somewhat’’ now.

Harcourts Grenadier chief executive Robert McCormack said earlier this month his company had a ‘‘huge number of inquiries’’ from overseas and had sold two properties to buyers who had not seen them.

Data from the realestate.co.nz website shows a clear jump in offshore visitors since lockdown began.

The week before the level 4 announcement, 15.9 per cent of the website’s traffic came from overseas.

The week New Zealand went into lockdown, that figure jumped to 23.9 per cent – the highest for a week in 2020.

Immigration New Zealand also reported a spike in overseas traffic to their ‘buying or building a house in New Zealand’ web page. It recorded 37,000 page views in the year to May 18, a 44 per cent leap on the same period last year.

Raymond Laursen, sales and innovation manager for Conroy Removals, said there was a 63 per cent jump in the number of people wanting to move from Australia to New Zealand in April this year compared to April 2019.

‘‘This assumption on our part is that the majority of these potential clients are Kiwis wanting to return home,’’ Laursen said.