6 OneRoof.co.nz
THE
THE PROPERTY RICH LIST: COVER STORY
Despite rising prices, New Zealand’s luxury housing market is still quite small. But if there were no foreign buyer ban, say agents, Kiwi houses would sell for $40m-plus. CATHERINE MASTERS reports.
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ven before the onset of the Covid crisis, New Zealand had a global reputation as a bolthole for billionaires, with the likes of Avatar director James Cameron and tech guru Peter Thiel buying up Kiwi beauty spots. When the pandemic struck there was a rash of stories about the rich and mega-rich flooding real estate sites looking for luxury Kiwi homes, and just this month the Government announced new measures to a"ract rich investors. But surprisingly, the majority of New Zealand’s high-end homes are bought by Kiwis. And, despite our enduring fascination with luxury real estate, the top end
Waterfront Herne Bay, in Auckland is home to some of the most expensive homes in New Zealand.The suburb has a median property value of more than $3 million. Photo / Chris Tarpey
Titanic director James Cameron and his wife Suzy Amis own a slice of New Zealand. Photo / Getty Images
of the housing market in New Zealand is miniscule. A OneRoof investigation into the more than 2.2 million residential property exchanges since 2000, found that $10 million-plus sales numbered li"le more than 100 - 0.004% of the entire market. And sales in the $5m to $9.99m price bracket numbered just over 1000, or 0.04% of the overall market. Some of the agents OneRoof spoke to say that the reason for the small number of big sales is that New Zealand just doesn’t have the stock in those top price brackets. Homes that would sell for those prices either don’t exist, as in they haven’t been built yet, or are owned by people who don’t want to sell because they would then have to search high and low to find something similar. The agents, however, say that if luxury homes were available or were built on spec by developers, they would sell fast because there are plenty
of people queuing up to buy them. This reflects the fact that there are a lot more wealthy Kiwis in the country than there used to be, they say. A recent New Zealand Herald report backs this up: the number of ultra-rich Kiwis has nearly doubled since 2015 with 390 people now worth $50m or more and that high wealth individuals and associates numbered 12,537 in the 2019 tax year, up from 7009 in the 2013 tax year. OneRoof data shows the price bands which have seen the biggest increase in sales over the last 20 years are in the $1m-$2m and $2m-$3m price bands, though agents who work in Auckland’s exclusive Eastern Bays suburbs say $5m sales for a “standard” home are now common, especially since the sharp spike in prices post-lockdown. While many the New Zealanders struggling to get onto the property market may feel faint at the thought of paying $5m, let alone $10m or $20m or more, these prices
pale in comparison to the luxury markets in big cities overseas. You could call New Zealand a li"le on the cheap side. In the United Kingdom, for example, the richest street is Kensington Palace Gardens, in London, where the average property price is more than $70 million. New Zealand’s biggest residential sale, $38.5m for former finance director Mark Hotchin’s mansion in Auckland’s Orakei, is yet to be eclipsed even though that record was set around eight years ago. Agents say this record is bound to be broken, as there are homes worth the same or more out there, but their view is that on the whole New Zealand simply does not have the pool of palatial homes and apartments that meet the international standards required by the extremely wealthy, who want eight bedrooms, eight bathrooms, eight car garaging and a spa and helipad. However, OneRoof’s
examination of the top 500 residential sales since 2000 shows there is another big difference between New Zealand’s prestige market and others around the world. In New Zealand, big sales have a lot to do with land and location and li"le to do with the quality of the house. Other findings from OneRoof’s investigation include: ● Auckland is New Zealand’s prestige capital, accounting for 440 spots on the list; Queenstown claims 28, Christchurch 6 and Wellington 2. ● Auckland’s double grammar zone heartland - Remuera is the suburb with the most big sales (122), followed by waterfront Herne Bay (49) and St Heliers (25). ● Beachfront properties do not dominate the list but are a big driver of sales in suburbs where beachfront is available. ● The median land size of residential properties that have sold for $10m is close to 2500sqm while the
