Latest / Best of Business / Hamish Walker: Queenstown real estate agent on the surge in interest from Australian buyers

Transcript

Hamish Walker: Queenstown real estate agent on the surge in interest from Australian buyers · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk ZEDB. Follow
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Now Queenstown real estate agents so they're getting increased interest
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: from Ossie buyers. Queenstown has been going against the national
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: trend with property right and the average asking price is
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: up twenty percent year on year in May for queen Style.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: While the rest of the country basically languishes in real
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: estate agents there reckon. The interest from across the ditch
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: ticked up after the Aussie budget. Hamish Walker is the
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: director of Walker and Co real estate agency in Queenstown
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: and is with us Hi Hamish.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Evening Heather, is this really happening? Absolutely? Like our website,
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: we're up about thirty percent just over the last five
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: weeks from Australia. If you look at real Estate dot
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: Co dot in Z year on year, they're up about
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty two percent. If you look at
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: trade me, they're about one hundred percent. To give you
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: an idea, last year I sold round about forty five properties.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Four of those properties were to Ossie's. This year I
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: have already sold roughly twenty six and nine of those
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: are to Ozzie's So just today is talking to five
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: different Aussies, a couple around sixty farmers from Queensland, three
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: different couples between thirty five and fifty. That's probably the
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: biggest tree. Not only there there's more people coming from Ozsie,
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: but there seems to be a lot of this. We
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: talk about the brains rain going out of New Zealand,
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: like I'm seeing this every day, it's actually coming back
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: and a lot of these people are actually Ossie's chasing
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: the lifestyle here.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, how much of it now? I can believe that
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: because you guys, boy, I mean, if there's one part
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: of the country with lifestyleists, you guys, But how many
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: of this has got to do with them trying to
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: avoid the CGT post their budget heaps?
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: So about a day after that budget I would have
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: had six or seven calls. And the sort of age
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: group that's coming from is this sort of thirty five
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: to fifty year age groups. So like today I had
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: a call from a guy my age forty one, two kids.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: He's got three investment properties and he goes, mate, I'm
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: ringing you because Australia is stuffed. I can't get ahead
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: here your taxims to your toe system is just far
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: more straightforward. So he's literally flying out next week to
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: buy a property. He's going to move here and he
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: wants to get into property development. It's like it's a
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: real thing. It's actually happening, And it was it was
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: like a light switch as soon as they hit the budget. Yeah,
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: that's when the phone started bringing big time.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, and are these people? So this is a guy
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's not going to sell up his investment
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: properties and come over here, right because he's still going
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: to get stung in the CGT.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: So in Australia, the big thing with the interest deductibility
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: around rental properties, the government quite clever over there. Set
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: if you've got properties in Australia, you're still going to
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: be able to gain that advantage, but not on new
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: properties that they buy. But if they come to New Zealand,
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: y're still stung with CGT. But our tech system is
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: just so straightforward and fear compared to Ozzie. So no,
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: it's a real thing. It's definitely happening.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Have you seen because the very early chat was about
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: the possibility of you know, startups coming over here, young
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: tech guys who have IDs and starting up apps. You
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: seeing any of that.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: Just started now. So for example, for example, last week,
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: I spent a whole day with a family, one of
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: the wealthiest families in the world. They're looking to come here.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: They're looking to buy basically a land holding and building
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: three huge dwellings on the piece of land. The dwellings
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: will be sort of north of one hundred million each.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: Another family. I'm dealing with their tech, but I don't
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: believe they'll bring their actual tech empire here. They're seeing
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: now New Zealand is more of a bulkholt. It's a
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: safe place. If the world goes to hell in a handbasket,
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: they can come here. So a wee bit of a
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: tech not a huge amount, and just on the it's
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: worth noting just on the investor program, like, we haven't
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: had many of those sales years yet. I believe I've
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: only had sort of I think three in Queenstown that
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: only came into law three months ago. But they're certainly
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: starting to look So the Aussie market's certainly hot over
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: sort of that three million mark, and they're allowed to
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: buy currently as long as it's under five hectares.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: So what do you reckon what proportion of these people
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: are actually going to come here, bring their businesses here,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: bring their brains here, and how many of them are
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: just wanting to holiday here. Occasionally a lot of them.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: Are dreamers, especially these sort of very wealthy families, these
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: tech people. They probably one in five will end up
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: coming here. So I could spend a whole day with
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: a family, and then I could spend another whole day
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: with the family, and probably about one in five will
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: come here. And usually if they haven't made the decision
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: by the time they jump on the plane, they're probably
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: not going to do anything here.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Interesting, you've been up to the snow yet we.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: Actually haven't got much. They open the luners. The luners
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: basically lean to me.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: That's me.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, my kids as well. But that's the only
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: part that's got snow. Apparently the snow is going to
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: come this year on Nino, so we're going to get
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: a huge dump, but it's going to be late, so
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: I think they're talking July for a big dump of snow,
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: but it just hasn't come come quite yet.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Good stuff, Thank you, Hamish, appreciate it, mate, Look yourself,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: I had that's Homish Walker, Queenstown real estate agent.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: For more from News Talk st B, listen live on
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio