Nearly one in five inner city Auckland homes were purchased by foreign buyers in the last quarter to March this year.
The latest Statistics New Zealand property transfer data was revealed this morning in Wellington.
Home purchases by foreign buyers has increased slightly in the last quarter to 3.3 per cent, from 2.9 per cent in the December 2017 quarter.
Foreign sellers also rose slightly to 1.5 per cent after remaining at 1.3 per cent for a year.
Property transfers, including land and commercial property as well as homes, to foreign buyers increased to 4.3 per cent in the latest quarter. This is up 1.3 per cent from a year ago.
Statistics New Zealand's Melissa McKenzie said the introduction of a Bill to amend the Overseas Investment Act may have been a factor in the latest results.
"The proposed changes could make it more challenging for overseas buyers to purchase residential land in New Zealand," she said in a statement.
Foreign ownership across Auckland varies significantly. In Franklin, 1.7 per cent of homes were purchased by foreign buyers, while in the central city it was 19 per cent. Overall, this group made up 7.3 per cent of Auckland's market.
In Queenstown-Lakes District, foreign ownership over the last quarter reached nearly 1 in 10 homes, at 9.7 per cent.
There were nearly 33,000 home purchases in New Zealand in the last quarter, which is down 2.4 per cent from a year ago.
For overseas tax residents, China was the highest country at 504 property purchases in the New Zealand market in the last quarter, followed by Australia with 381, the United Kingdom with 90 and Hong Kong with 78.
This is the first time data for property purchases by New Zealand residents that aren't citizens has been collected, with the group making up 8 per cent of the market in the last quarter.
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