February 8, 2025 • 12 mins
Winston Peters has hinted at relaxing the foreign buyers ban for those who are willing to bring over the big bucks.
The NZ First leader said plans to lift the ban are a work in progress.
He says if foreign investors are willing to pump millions of dollars into other parts of the country , he is open to allowing them to buy property.
Williams Corporation Managing Director, Matthew Horncastle, joins to discuss.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talk,
said b Winston Peters has hinted at relaxing or agreeing
to a relaxing of the foreign buyers ban for those
who are willing to bring over the big bucks. It
sort of maybe ties in a little bit too. Today's
announcement as well. The New Zealand First leader said plans
to lift the band were a work in progress, and
(00:26):
he says a foreign vestors are willing to pump millions
of dollars into other parts of the country. He's open
to allowing them to buy property, but it's raised question
as to how this would impact Kiwi buys.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Of course we all want to know. I guess if
you're a bunch.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
About to sell you or your portfolio, you probably want
as much interest in the market as you can get.
Anyway to discuss that. Williams Corporation Managing Director Matthew Horncastle
is with me now.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Matthew, good afternoon, Hello, Thanks very much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
What have you made of those sounds that Winston you'd
be following the stuff pretty closely. It did seem to
look like he was flexible when it comes to people
contributing elsewhere.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Yeah, which I thought was surprised. I thought he would
have been a firm person of blocking things of this nature.
But I think when we look at the country where
we're coming through a harder period, and if we want
to focus on wealth and prosperity, free people in free
markets is what generates the most wealth. And I don't
(01:24):
really see any downside with opening up New Zealand to
have more capital coming into the country, and property is
an easy start.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
What change would you make if you were thinking that
you'd probably have to get it past Winston. It's a
complication of the question, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Look some of the comments, like when he said new properties,
I can see I can see the other side of
the aisle. So I'm personal ply some free people in
free markets. I think we should be open to trade
with the entire world, including property. I can see the
argument where people say that, well, if anyone in the
(02:04):
world can buy property, that means there's more buyers, supply
and demand goes more in that favor and prices will increase.
But when we look at the historical data, it doesn't
show that. Like we banned foreign buyers in twenty eighteen,
and when you look at a New Zealand property median
property graph, that line in the sand is almost completely
(02:26):
inconsequential in the inflation of the property. So I think
this is far less important than what people think it is.
I think there's going to be yeah, it is.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
That is slightly complicated by that cheap money that we
had for a year or two, isn't it that whole
graph of that property.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
That's a fair statement. That's a fair statement. But also
like it's there's no noticeable dip or rise. Oh sorry,
there is a noticeable rise, but there's no noticeable effect.
And I think as you look at the data back
when we had a free and open market of what
percentage of foreigners bought property, it was far lower than
everyone speak to it today.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Because there was a time when the economy felt more
buoyant and so prices were you know, the market was
doing very well. So people who were trying to get
in and felt it was getting less affordable looked at
the foreign buyers and thought, we hate it. But actually,
how would it look in a market right now which
does feel that it doesn't have a lot of energy
in it?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
If I could put it.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
That way, well, I think the main thing is if
we're looking at taking practical steps to expand the pie
and to grow wealth and prosperity, foreign investment is a
good one because normally what I've seen when I've dealt
with international markets and international buyers, foreign buyers are quite
comfortable with new plot projects, especially off the plans and
(03:51):
dealing with longer term horizons because if you don't live
in that country, having in US, it is less management
for you. And so if we look at projects like
what I do residential development, if we have those extra
handful of sales that come through, that can be the
(04:11):
different of the difference of the projects going ahead or not.
So let's say you were doing quite a cool project
and you had one hundred units, those extra ten fifteen
that come in from the foreign market, those purchases, that
can be the difference of getting enough pre sales to
get your project off the ground. So like and Winston
(04:33):
did say he was open to new real estate, which
I think is positive because you can see if the
foreign capital is creating a new as yet, it's very
hard to argue that that's not net positive for the
country because then you've got all of that jobs of
wealth creation and you're expanding the housing poll, so I
(04:53):
see that as positive. I think the current tech of
I think it was investments over five million in the economy.
I already thought that there was a path for those
people to get residency quite quickly and purchase property anyway.
So it sort of seems like it's a lot of
noise for an animal that we already have.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
That's interesting because we're still trying to digest the substance
of this, because I mean, we are blurring our topics
over to the announcement that they've just made about foreign investors.
Because Nikola Willis made a big deal about the digital nomads,
didn't she when in fact, can you name it? Can
you think of any single traveler who doesn't hasn't brought
their laptop. He might not think it's okay to do
some emails anyway without giving us commission, Like.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
We sort of are making a whole lot of noise
for policy that doesn't actually change what's happening, which is interesting.
I also saw that they were talking about the government
department I think called in West New Zealand. I'm sort
of quite strongly against that sort of stuff. I think
we already have enough government, and the last thing we
(06:00):
need is more government departments. Like I'll give you an example.
The government just in ounced that they were going to
have a separate government department for consenting, so you could
essentially bypass your counsel and go to this government department.
And for my own curiosity, I thought I'd just call them,
and so I called the number and said, Hey, I'm
(06:21):
Matthew Honka, So I'm William's Corporation. I have this consenting volume.
I really just want to understand the detail between what
con sense I still need from counsel, what consense I
can get from you, what the triggers are, and what
the costings are. And she's like, have you read the website?
And I'm like, I would prefer just to understand from
(06:42):
your department how this all works.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Do you know who I am?
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Well no, no, just no, no, yeah. And then she
said I don't have that information, and I was like, well,
is there someone in the office that does, because this
is what you do. And then she's like no, And
I was like, this is just such a perfect example
of we're from the government and we're here to help
do something that sounds awesome and theory but then in practice,
(07:09):
you're still just dealing with the government department compared to
if that was a private set to company that had there.
But let's say there were three or four or five
private set to companies that had appropriate insurance in place
to take over consenting, that would be a very different
conversation than if I'm dealing with the government department.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Okay, So if we're getting back to this thing about
the foreign buyers as well and the potential for that,
are you almost sort of conceding that.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I don't mean that in a negative.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Way, by the way, but if whatever they're planning is
about investing for people who are looking investing in new developments,
that can make a real difference because, as you say,
the little bit of cream that might be lacking for
you guys right now is the difference between getting another
project going.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
No, you were one hundred percent right. If there was.
If there was one piece of legislation that I think
both sides of the aisle would agree on that would
make a tangible difference, that would be just let foreign
buyers purchase new assets, and then that would stimulate the
creation of more housing because there is a deficit I know,
(08:22):
people think that there isn't because infrast rates are high
and housing is dropped in value. When you look at
the immigration data compared to the construction data, we're not
building enough homes. And it's not like we're not building
enough homes by five or six or seven thousand, it's
like ten or twenty thousand per year. So there needs
(08:45):
to be that supply driven in. Foreign investments are really
easy lever for the government's pull.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Just sharing within the developers industry, and I mean, you
guys are obviously still doing all right, but you'd like
to see more capital flying in so you can really.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Do what you want.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
How how are things in that market right now? Because
there are developers who are struggling, who are not making
the grade to getting their new developments going. How badly
does this need to happen?
Speaker 3 (09:15):
So this would be the rough data, so peak of
the market, which would have been twenty twenty two, our
best ever months of sales was about one hundred houses
and our best ever year was just under seven hundred houses,
and then in the last twelve months we've sold two
(09:35):
hundred and forty and then the bottom of the market,
which was for us it wasn't last year, but the
year before that was about one hundred and ninety. But
then also in that time period where we were selling
a lower amount, we were still delivering that large tail
(09:57):
from the peak of the market. So we've sort of
because we're an established business, we didn't get as hurt
because we had that tale of work to carry us through.
Let's just say that we've traded through a four year dip.
The first two and a bit years of that dip
was carried through from unconditional presales from the bull market.
(10:19):
But I think it's reasonable if you were to say
market transactions have halved, that would probably be about right.
But then within certain areas it is far more brutal
than that. So's there's certain areas, suburbs, places that have
(10:40):
had a really bad time, and we've sort of been
quite fortunate. We are christ Church based because that's home
for me, and christ Church had the tail of the
rebuild really hitting the market right at the time that
this will happen.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
So you've got a fine factors where you're sort of thinking, well,
thank goodness for this and the things that favor, where
some developers wouldn't have that. So I advis study. Look,
Winston's agreed to foreign buyers being able to invest in
new properties.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
But that's it. That'll be a win for you guys,
wouldn't it.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
It would definitely be a win. But I also do
think it'd be a win for the country.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Oh that's yeah. I meant that more broadly.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I can't think of a
single KEYWI that would be negatively affected by foreign purchases
purchasing new property. But just and I was thinking about
it before we did this interview, just to make sure
that I didn't have some sort of bias that I was.
I think it's fair thinking does this actually benefit the
(11:44):
entire country or does it just benefit me? But I
believe it's positive because when you look at the GDP figures,
construction is such a huge part of GDP, and I
don't think people realized quite how much it carries the
rest of the economy.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Okay, Hey, Matthew, I really appreciate your time this afternoon.
Great stuff, and I look forward to talking and talking again.
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to News
Talk ZEDB weekends from three p m.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talk,
said b Winston Peters has hinted at relaxing or agreeing
to a relaxing of the foreign buyers ban for those
who are willing to bring over the big bucks. It
sort of maybe ties in a little bit too. Today's
announcement as well. The New Zealand First leader said plans
to lift the band were a work in progress, and
(00:26):
he says a foreign vestors are willing to pump millions
of dollars into other parts of the country. He's open
to allowing them to buy property, but it's raised question
as to how this would impact Kiwi buys.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Of course we all want to know. I guess if
you're a bunch.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
About to sell you or your portfolio, you probably want
as much interest in the market as you can get.
Anyway to discuss that. Williams Corporation Managing Director Matthew Horncastle
is with me now.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Matthew, good afternoon, Hello, Thanks very much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
What have you made of those sounds that Winston you'd
be following the stuff pretty closely. It did seem to
look like he was flexible when it comes to people
contributing elsewhere.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Yeah, which I thought was surprised. I thought he would
have been a firm person of blocking things of this nature.
But I think when we look at the country where
we're coming through a harder period, and if we want
to focus on wealth and prosperity, free people in free
markets is what generates the most wealth. And I don't
(01:24):
really see any downside with opening up New Zealand to
have more capital coming into the country, and property is
an easy start.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
What change would you make if you were thinking that
you'd probably have to get it past Winston. It's a
complication of the question, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Look some of the comments, like when he said new properties,
I can see I can see the other side of
the aisle. So I'm personal ply some free people in
free markets. I think we should be open to trade
with the entire world, including property. I can see the
argument where people say that, well, if anyone in the
(02:04):
world can buy property, that means there's more buyers, supply
and demand goes more in that favor and prices will increase.
But when we look at the historical data, it doesn't
show that. Like we banned foreign buyers in twenty eighteen,
and when you look at a New Zealand property median
property graph, that line in the sand is almost completely
(02:26):
inconsequential in the inflation of the property. So I think
this is far less important than what people think it is.
I think there's going to be yeah, it is.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
That is slightly complicated by that cheap money that we
had for a year or two, isn't it that whole
graph of that property.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
That's a fair statement. That's a fair statement. But also
like it's there's no noticeable dip or rise. Oh sorry,
there is a noticeable rise, but there's no noticeable effect.
And I think as you look at the data back
when we had a free and open market of what
percentage of foreigners bought property, it was far lower than
everyone speak to it today.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Because there was a time when the economy felt more
buoyant and so prices were you know, the market was
doing very well. So people who were trying to get
in and felt it was getting less affordable looked at
the foreign buyers and thought, we hate it. But actually,
how would it look in a market right now which
does feel that it doesn't have a lot of energy
in it?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
If I could put it.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
That way, well, I think the main thing is if
we're looking at taking practical steps to expand the pie
and to grow wealth and prosperity, foreign investment is a
good one because normally what I've seen when I've dealt
with international markets and international buyers, foreign buyers are quite
comfortable with new plot projects, especially off the plans and
(03:51):
dealing with longer term horizons because if you don't live
in that country, having in US, it is less management
for you. And so if we look at projects like
what I do residential development, if we have those extra
handful of sales that come through, that can be the
(04:11):
different of the difference of the projects going ahead or not.
So let's say you were doing quite a cool project
and you had one hundred units, those extra ten fifteen
that come in from the foreign market, those purchases, that
can be the difference of getting enough pre sales to
get your project off the ground. So like and Winston
(04:33):
did say he was open to new real estate, which
I think is positive because you can see if the
foreign capital is creating a new as yet, it's very
hard to argue that that's not net positive for the
country because then you've got all of that jobs of
wealth creation and you're expanding the housing poll, so I
(04:53):
see that as positive. I think the current tech of
I think it was investments over five million in the economy.
I already thought that there was a path for those
people to get residency quite quickly and purchase property anyway.
So it sort of seems like it's a lot of
noise for an animal that we already have.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
That's interesting because we're still trying to digest the substance
of this, because I mean, we are blurring our topics
over to the announcement that they've just made about foreign investors.
Because Nikola Willis made a big deal about the digital nomads,
didn't she when in fact, can you name it? Can
you think of any single traveler who doesn't hasn't brought
their laptop. He might not think it's okay to do
some emails anyway without giving us commission, Like.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
We sort of are making a whole lot of noise
for policy that doesn't actually change what's happening, which is interesting.
I also saw that they were talking about the government
department I think called in West New Zealand. I'm sort
of quite strongly against that sort of stuff. I think
we already have enough government, and the last thing we
(06:00):
need is more government departments. Like I'll give you an example.
The government just in ounced that they were going to
have a separate government department for consenting, so you could
essentially bypass your counsel and go to this government department.
And for my own curiosity, I thought I'd just call them,
and so I called the number and said, Hey, I'm
(06:21):
Matthew Honka, So I'm William's Corporation. I have this consenting volume.
I really just want to understand the detail between what
con sense I still need from counsel, what consense I
can get from you, what the triggers are, and what
the costings are. And she's like, have you read the website?
And I'm like, I would prefer just to understand from
(06:42):
your department how this all works.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Do you know who I am?
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Well no, no, just no, no, yeah. And then she
said I don't have that information, and I was like, well,
is there someone in the office that does, because this
is what you do. And then she's like no, And
I was like, this is just such a perfect example
of we're from the government and we're here to help
do something that sounds awesome and theory but then in practice,
(07:09):
you're still just dealing with the government department compared to
if that was a private set to company that had there.
But let's say there were three or four or five
private set to companies that had appropriate insurance in place
to take over consenting, that would be a very different
conversation than if I'm dealing with the government department.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Okay, So if we're getting back to this thing about
the foreign buyers as well and the potential for that,
are you almost sort of conceding that.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I don't mean that in a negative.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Way, by the way, but if whatever they're planning is
about investing for people who are looking investing in new developments,
that can make a real difference because, as you say,
the little bit of cream that might be lacking for
you guys right now is the difference between getting another
project going.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
No, you were one hundred percent right. If there was.
If there was one piece of legislation that I think
both sides of the aisle would agree on that would
make a tangible difference, that would be just let foreign
buyers purchase new assets, and then that would stimulate the
creation of more housing because there is a deficit I know,
(08:22):
people think that there isn't because infrast rates are high
and housing is dropped in value. When you look at
the immigration data compared to the construction data, we're not
building enough homes. And it's not like we're not building
enough homes by five or six or seven thousand, it's
like ten or twenty thousand per year. So there needs
(08:45):
to be that supply driven in. Foreign investments are really
easy lever for the government's pull.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Just sharing within the developers industry, and I mean, you
guys are obviously still doing all right, but you'd like
to see more capital flying in so you can really.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Do what you want.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
How how are things in that market right now? Because
there are developers who are struggling, who are not making
the grade to getting their new developments going. How badly
does this need to happen?
Speaker 3 (09:15):
So this would be the rough data, so peak of
the market, which would have been twenty twenty two, our
best ever months of sales was about one hundred houses
and our best ever year was just under seven hundred houses,
and then in the last twelve months we've sold two
(09:35):
hundred and forty and then the bottom of the market,
which was for us it wasn't last year, but the
year before that was about one hundred and ninety. But
then also in that time period where we were selling
a lower amount, we were still delivering that large tail
(09:57):
from the peak of the market. So we've sort of
because we're an established business, we didn't get as hurt
because we had that tale of work to carry us through.
Let's just say that we've traded through a four year dip.
The first two and a bit years of that dip
was carried through from unconditional presales from the bull market.
(10:19):
But I think it's reasonable if you were to say
market transactions have halved, that would probably be about right.
But then within certain areas it is far more brutal
than that. So's there's certain areas, suburbs, places that have
(10:40):
had a really bad time, and we've sort of been
quite fortunate. We are christ Church based because that's home
for me, and christ Church had the tail of the
rebuild really hitting the market right at the time that
this will happen.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
So you've got a fine factors where you're sort of thinking, well,
thank goodness for this and the things that favor, where
some developers wouldn't have that. So I advis study. Look,
Winston's agreed to foreign buyers being able to invest in
new properties.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
But that's it. That'll be a win for you guys,
wouldn't it.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
It would definitely be a win. But I also do
think it'd be a win for the country.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Oh that's yeah. I meant that more broadly.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I can't think of a
single KEYWI that would be negatively affected by foreign purchases
purchasing new property. But just and I was thinking about
it before we did this interview, just to make sure
that I didn't have some sort of bias that I was.
I think it's fair thinking does this actually benefit the
(11:44):
entire country or does it just benefit me? But I
believe it's positive because when you look at the GDP figures,
construction is such a huge part of GDP, and I
don't think people realized quite how much it carries the
rest of the economy.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Okay, Hey, Matthew, I really appreciate your time this afternoon.
Great stuff, and I look forward to talking and talking again.
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to News
Talk ZEDB weekends from three p m.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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