Overview

• The government says holders of the Active Investor Plus residency visa will be able to buy or build one home worth at least NZ$5 million, reversing part of the 2018 restriction on foreign residential purchases.
• The change is not in force until Parliament passes reforms to the Overseas Investment Act, which officials target for later this year.
• Ministers will also waive a previous rule requiring visa holders to spend at least six months a year in New Zealand, which had made some applicants ineligible to buy property.
• Officials report just over 300 investor visa applications to date, representing about 1,000 people and potentially NZ$1.8–3 billion in investment, with roughly 40% of applicants from the United States.
• The threshold confines eligible listings to fewer than 1% of homes—about 10,000 properties—concentrated mainly in Auckland and Queenstown, a scale critics say still risks worsening housing pressures.