New Zealand opens doors to foreign buyers

This represents a significant policy shift from the blanket foreign buyer ban implemented in 2018. The change follows revisions made to New Zealand's 'golden' visa, also known as the Active Investor Plus (AIP) visa, in April 2025. To attract additional investment, skills, ideas and connections to New Zealand, the government made the AIP visa more accessible by lowering minimum investment thresholds from $15 million to $5 million for growth category investments and $10 million for balanced category investments, removing English language requirements, and reducing residency time obligations. As part of this broader effort to encourage high-value investment, AIP visa holders will be permitted to purchase residential property by late 2025.

Who is affected?

The eligibility rules, although loosened, still intentionally target a very small segment of the housing market. Given the broader investment requirements of the AIP visa, foreigners must first commit $5-10 million in qualifying investments before potentially another $5 million for property, creating a total $10-15 million entry threshold. First-home buyers and mainstream market participants face virtually no additional competition since these properties are well beyond typical New Zealander purchasing power.

This ultra-luxury focus is reflected in both the sales volumes and geographic distribution. Over the last three years, only 515 sales recorded a value above $5 million (0.2 per cent of all sales), and its impact is geographically concentrated with 72 per cent of all sales above $5 million coming from Auckland and 15 per cent coming from the Queenstown-Lakes District. The final 13 per cent of sales above $5 million is spread across Tauranga, Christchurch, and other regional areas of New Zealand.

Among suburbs, Remuera led with 69 sales above $5 million, followed by Wanaka with 24 sales. The top 10 suburbs account for 44 per cent of all $5 million-plus sales and are dominated by Auckland locations (Remuera, St Heliers, Herne Bay, Epsom, Takapuna, Omaha, and Milford) alongside two Queenstown-Lakes District suburbs (Wanaka and Arrowtown) and Mount Maunganui in Tauranga.