Apples and oranges

Stats NZ for the last year has been consistently reporting around 3% of house sales appear to be to non residents.

The Herald ran a story quoting ASB saying they have calculated that actually up to 20% of sales are to non residents.

But the story was misleading, as Stats Chat highlights.

The ASB research was that between 11% and 21% of sales were to non citizens. That is very different to non residents.

You can have lived here for 30 years and not be a citizen. In fact we are one of the few countries that provides almost no incentives for residents to become citizens. Residents can vote etc. They just can’t stand for Parliament.