UPDATED: 6.23AM The data might not be perfect, but the Government says they now have proof it's not foreigners causing trouble in our housing market.
LISTEN ABOVE: Property Institute CEO Ashley Church speaks to Mike Hosking
Land Information New Zealand puts the number of foreign buyers at around three per cent, but admits they've struggled putting the numbers together, with doubt around purchases from companies, trusts, or those on a student or work visa.
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Finance Minister Bill English said, even if the data isn't perfect, it still tells us a lot.
"What you know is it's not 30 per cent and it's almost certainly not 10 per cent, it's less than that and I think it shows that the foreign buyer issue is a bit of a red herring."
The figures released yesterday also show over 50 per cent of house sales are going to investors from New Zealand.
ACT leader David Seymour said it shows the fuss over foreign buyers was political scapegoating.
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"John Key needs to renounce the introduction of new taxes off the back of these numbers. What's the point in voting for a National party that introduces new taxes like a Labour government."
Seymour said whether those involved are local or foreign, there's one solution.
"The reason that we have a speculative bubble is that it's too hard to build a home in New Zealand. If you solve that problem, you will solve all the other problems people talk about with tax and lending rules."
However, a top Real Estate Executive believes the period measuring who is buying New Zealand property is too short.
Barfoot and Thompson Director Peter Thompson said the figure comes close to their predictions.
"When we looked at the peak of last year, we were only saying that we felt it was somewhere between five and seven percent, and they're saying that this is round about three to five per cent."
But Mr Thompson said we need to wait for a six months minimum to get a true reflection of who's buying what.
"A three-month period of which one of those months additionally is sort of the slowest month of the year is possibly too short," he said.
English said it shows foreigners aren't the biggest problem for our housing market.
"The big issue though is there's a lot of demand. Most of it's from New Zealanders overwhelmingly and the market needs to supply enough houses to meet that demand."
The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand's Chief Executive, Colleen Milne, said while the nationwide figures were to her surprising, the time period is a fair amount of time to get decent statistics.
"We've had some record volume sales through that period, so I anticipate this is a good reflection on the non-resident buyers in the market.
"The 3 per cent across the rest of New Zealand, when you average it out, was probably higher than we anticipated."
However, another property expert believes the new figures around foreign investment in the market have large grey areas.
Bayleys' Residential Manager Daniel Coulson said because the data has only taken three months of information into account, it's not really enough to form an accumulative view.
"As this data continues to come through over the next 6 to 12 months to 18 months, there's going to be less and less of that grey area."
But Mr Coulson said the figures released yesterday do indicate a far smaller percentage than most people probably thought. He said the figures show foreign investment is only a small part of the market.
"There's lots of factors driving the market, not only in Auckland but around the country, foreign investment is just one of them and if anything figures show that it's probably a smaller factor than what most people thought."
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