justinthyme

by Charles Lowndes (a rather well fed estate agent)

An overlooked feature of the debate over housing prices and affordability is the recent wave of immigrants from the UK with the ability to pay for houses they want and to contribute to the nation’s wellbeing.

The British represent the largest nationality group to have emigrated here in the past three years – a total of 65,000 or some 21,500 annually.

These British migrants have placed a greater demand on our housing stock than migration statistics alone reveal. Most British migrants looking to Auckland (their first choice) tell us that they will spend $600,000 to $1,000,000 on their home.

No wonder British migration is having an impact on our house prices.

http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_art...me=NBR+Comment


I think if I were an indigenous Kiwi first time buyer I'd be questioning the wisdom of flooding the country with "cashed up Poms".

BEVS

I've found that many Kiwis think we are all 'cashed up Poms' with wads of '$3 dollar notes'. Phil gets it a lot with the various tradesmen and builders he works with. We certainly don't fall into that category at all. Mortgaged , working poms is wot we are.

I do feel that cashed up overseas folk have had an inpact on the housing market here. The norm here is to haggle at length for the price of a house , down to the last few dollars and even the fittings. I would think the average Kiwi couldn't compete with an offer from someone for whom the odd $1000 more would mean little.
First time buyers have the exact same problems as those in the UK. The prices are just too high for them.

brussels_sprout

Most are "Poms who cannot even afford a decent house" poms too, well i am . Most Kiwis seem to be sitting on houses and land worth $$$$ , well my rellies are anyway

RobClubley

We get that attitude occasionally - we brought about $35k with us - a house deposit - not a bad start I think!

P2L

I agree with the article TBH,

Like lots of other poms here, we're certainly not cashed up! In fact ours is still sat over there cos we aint got a lot, and could do with it being nearer to $3 than $2.70, just so we have a couple of thousand more dollars so trying to get on the ladder here is just as frustrating for some of us as it is for the Kiwis

AnnieNell

We aren't cashed up Poms either. We have a mortgage here that is more than twice the amount we had in the UK. Plus we are on half the salary we were on in the UK. So some days I do question our sanity in moving here. Still the scenery's nice

ballsrburning

Can't believe NZ sufferes from this attitutde as well drove me nuts in China everyone thought we were loaded when in reality a lot of our chinese friends hvae and had a hell of a lot mre money than us.

I have to disagree with the first buyer point made above, we are first time buyers and currently live in cambridge UK. There is no way we can afford a decent house over here prices are ridicolous. We know what we can earn in NZ becasue of our occapation, wages are fixed and after seeking morgage advise from NZ banks we can quite comfartable afford a house in Auckland, titrangi to be precise. Where as we can't in the Cambridge.

Overall the article is accurate but I do disagree with some of his points, we going with $20k if we are lucky. certainly not rich poms.

KiwiKate

Obviously it depends on which particular poms we're talking about (and I think age plays a big factor here) - most I'd guess come away from UK with some equity, but still need a mortgage to buy a decent place (like us)- and higher rates have a huge impact on affordability.
Then you have the poms in their late 40's, who have no mortgage, and have seriously raked it in with UK housing market peaks, who can afford to spend $1mill without even worrying about the finer details!! Seriously, my hubby worked with a guy in his late 40's, whose wife wasn't even here yet, and he went and bought a place at auction outright for 1.1 mill without even doing a second visit, and his wife not seeing it - all he could say Monday at work was "well, it's on 5 acres, 4 bed new house at £340k - what more could you want????"

btw - we're still renting - our £'s are back in UK, too nervous to know when to move them!!!

RADI

Kiwi Kate you have just sussed us out ,over 40 with no mortgage(nice) and a favourable exchange rate last year made our dream home come true .However that is not all true of the Brit imports here.A lot of younger peeps as said have only a small deposit to put down ,however it is still more than the local Kiwi can muster .I dont think we are in any way responsible for higher home prices here .I blame GREEDY Real estate companies looking for even more commission .I was shocked at the prices % they ask to sell a home here .We paid 1% back in the UK last year .Here it seems to be anything they can get away with from 5% to9% or more.They put the home prices up not us Pommies who come here to live .We are just easy meat for them to sell homes to .
I can see a slump however happening within 18 months as it is just like th eboom and bust of Britain just a few years ago in reality.

BEVS

Scooooooose me.

We are well, and I mean well over 40 , with mortgage and working. We rented for over two years.

KiwiKate

Well then you don't fit my stereotype But there are many out there who do!!! And to them NZ is cheap, with it's 'luxury' houses in the $1mill ballpark. We rent, I have no mortgage and I'm not even working - a pretty sad state of affairs all round for someone in their 30's, eh??

uk+kiwi

I think it depends on who 'we' is. Perhaps not you personally, as one person wouldn't make much of a difference to a nation's increasing property prices, unless they were super rich celebrityesque types!

But of course immigrants as a section of house buyers have helped fuel house prices. That is an absolute fact. Especially those who are cash buyers, since they have the upper hand generally speaking in any house purchase competition (eg auction) against those buying to a tighter budget, of which a mortgage is a part. It's part of the exchange rate advantage and some luck involved with location & timing of UK property transactions, possibly along with savings and other investments.

It's the same as the city bonuses playing their part in rising London house prices. And a growth in cheap buy-to-let mortgages in the UK increasing demand and hence houses prices via multiple home ownerships.

What baffles me though is the high level of multiple home ownerships in NZ with the high interest rates and real estate fees that you have mentioned. Although the latter may partly explain why kiwis have historically held onto their houses for the long term instead of reviewing and changing their 'property portfolios' more frequently.

Property - love it. Wish I could have several homes of different styles in different beautiful locations around the world. Greedy, yes. But only a dream, so no damage being done.

Bo-Jangles

Quite frankly it baffles me too, I don't see too many 'cashed up' POMS with multiple homes in their 'property portfolio', yet there is plenty of multiple home owning Aucklanders. Cashed up POMMIE so and so's, gets the blame as usual, they're definitely not the ones buying shoebox apartments in CBD for stupid $s. A 'Property portfolio' was not even in my vocabulary before arriving in NZ and I didn't know a single person in UK who owns more than the property that they lived in, yet here in Auckland I know so many people who have more than one house, one couple I know has five houses. Poor Kiwis, eh?

cypherpunk

At the moment I think there's a two-tier market with the european and asian immigrants paying much more than most of the locals can afford for residences, and the kiwi and non-resident investors buying cheaper properties for investment (and land-banking). But with immigration falling a bit and much higher numbers of kiwis emigrating it looks like the balance on the expensive side is tipping a bit.

Maz

Well I think the way the housing market has gone in the UK in the last 20 years or so is having a rather unfair impact on NZ's housing market, pushing up prices as migrants generally have more money to spend on a deposit, at least, than the average Kiwi. If we go to NZ, we'll be bringing roughly NZ$230K. BUT we're also planning to be a one-income household...