Real estate insiders say the foreign buyers ban hasn't made a major dent in house prices.

Overseas buyer activity fell off a cliff in the first quarter of the year after restrictions to bar foreigners from snapping up existing homes took hold.

Home transfers to people who didn't hold New Zealand citizenship or a resident visa fell more than 80 per cent in the March 2019 quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, Stats NZ said.

"Overseas people acquired just 0.6 per cent of homes transferred in the first quarter of 2019, reflecting law changes in late 2018 that introduced restrictions for overseas buyers," property statistics manager Melissa McKenzie said. In those cases, none of the buyers were NZ citizens or resident-visa holders although the data excludes cases where all the buyers were corporate entities.

There were 204 home transfers to people who didn't hold NZ citizenship or a resident visa in the March 2019 quarter versus 1,083 in the March 2018 quarter. Total home transfers fell 3.5 per cent over the same period.

The ban on foreign buyers took effect from Oct. 22 and prevents most people who don't hold NZ citizenship or a resident visa from buying residential property in New Zealand.

Under the revamped act, there are exemptions for those who buy new apartments in certain developments, who add to New Zealand's housing supply, and for Australian and Singaporean citizens.

"The share of home transfers to overseas people peaked at 3.3 per cent in the March 2018 quarter when the law changes were being discussed," said McKenzie.

However, REINZ CEO Bindi Norwell told Mike Yardley the ban was designed to improve affordability, and it hasn't done that.

"Prices have gone up, so looking at New Zealand overall in the same time, they have gone up 4.6 per cent, in Queenstown up nearly 4.0 per cent. Auckland has probably gone down 0.5 per cent, but it's been like that for three years."

She says that the drop is quite small in the scheme of the property market. 

Norwell says that the one change is in terms of volume.

"It's only pone part of the puzzle, but we have seen volume go down 8.2 per cent in that same period."