Rich foreign homebuyers touch down in private jets to shop for $5 million-plus homes
Friday, 6 March 2026
The Government’s “Golden Visa” scheme allowing rich overseas investors to buy homes worth $5 million has resulted in a tick-up in interest in the luxury property market.
New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty managing director Mark Harris said Queenstown had a busy week last week with 14 sales, one for over $10 million.
There were rich people boots on the ground with high net worth individuals increasingly “physically present in Queenstown and Auckland for viewings”, though Harris said often the ultra wealthy sent agents to do the house-hunting for them.
“About half a dozen private jets arrived in Queenstown over the past few weeks, and they continue to arrive regularly,” Harris said.
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In 2018, the Labour-led government introduced a foreign buyer ban to prevent foreign speculators bidding up New Zealand house prices. It banned non-residents not physically present in the country for six months a year from buying residential properties.
While the ban largely remained in place, the current Government’s new “active investor plus” visa, which comes into effect today, allows wealthy people to invest in New Zealand, and also buy homes valued over $5 million without having to spend six months of the year here.
Real estate agents dealing in the luxury market have noted an increase in search traffic from overseas. Harris said buyer visits were from wealthy people in US, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Japan and China.
However, with the Middle East now in turmoil, Harris said the last week had seen interest increase from wealthy people living in the United Arab Emirates.
The $5m-plus market is a small one, but there does seem to be more life to it than the wider market, where the median home is worth $800,000.
Harris said that New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty’s national sales of $5m-plus homes was up 55.6% compared with this time last year.
“Overseas buyer participation has doubled year-on-year, and that was before the policy change came into effect,” Harris said. “Just 6.5% of Southern Lakes purchasers were from overseas in January-February 2025. For the same period this year, it has increased to 13%.”
Kelvin Davidson, an economist from property intelligence company Cotality, said last year there 214 homes sold for more than $5m.
And across the country there were about 6500 homes valued at more than $5m.
“There’s a few hundred of these deals each year,” Davidson said.
There have been suggestions that there was a “shortage” of ultra luxury properties, but Davidson said: “The world is a big place, and there are a lot of people in it. Demand could outstrip supply.”
With Queenstown property prices well out of reach for many locals, was there a concern that the larger land plots on which high value homes were sited could be pushing up land prices, and occupying land that could be used for multiple home?
Davidson felt that was not an issue, even if greater liquidity in the $5m-plus home market encouraged more wealthy people from overseas to buy land and build luxury homes.
“We don’t have unlimited land, but we have got enough,” Davidson said.
And, he said, 149 of the 214 homes sold for over $5m last year were in Auckland, in suburbs like Herne Bay.
There have been concerns that in Queenstown, an increasing number of homes were being left empty for many months of the year, hollowing out the life of the town.
Harris said that while some ultra wealthy people bought homes they did not intend to use as their only home, many did move to the town, boosting its economy.
Encouraging the ultra rich to buy homes in New Zealand that many would only use for a few weeks or months a year, did not impress 350 Aotearoa, a climate activism group that is campaigning against the use of private jets.
Adam Currie from 350 Aotearoa said on a per person basis, private jets pumped out around 15 times the emissions of commercial flights.
Selling homes to people who travelled on private jets was effectively locking in higher levels of climate-altering emissions.
“Encouraging this kind of activity is not good for the planet,” Currie said.
Currie said that although they would be paying local council rates, many of the owners of the homes do not pay taxes here.
“There’s not a lot of economic benefit for laying out the red carpet for the ultra-rich,” he said.
Harris disputed that.
Under the new golden visas, before buying a home worth more than $5m, buyers had to be investing $5m to $10m in New Zealand.
And, he said: “There have been multiple example of international purchasers who have come here, loved the place, and invested further into the community.”
They had done things like develop racecourses, marinas and lodges, he said.