Its effective handling of the pandemic and quick economic recovery is driving even more investors to New Zealand shores
Rolling hills, soaring peaks, lush countryside, impossibly azure waters—cliched as these descriptions may sound, these are parts of New Zealand’s landscape that have fit the plots of the greatest fantasy and period-action films and TV series made in the past two decades. Be it the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy or the new post-apocalyptic Netflix series Sweet Tooth, its natural beauty has enthralled many.
These have put the country on the bucket list of tourists as well as long-term settlers—the country has one of the highest populations of foreign-born citizens—including billionaires the likes of PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and Linkedin’s Reid Hoffman. The country’s historically low-interest rates have played a big part as well.
Now, with the way the country’s economy has rebounded from the pandemic, it seems to be ticking a lot more boxes for property investors.
New Zealand and Australia have been appealing to European investors given their much smaller population and tighter border control, says Dominic Volek, group head of private clients of Henley & Partners.
“Where someone chooses to migrate to can depend on a number of factors, and our recent research, which ranks countries that host residence- and citizenship-by-investment programs, found that those with the capacity to provide access to health security ranked high,” he says. New Zealand, along with Australia, were ranked highest in terms of health management and risk readiness.
The two countries joined Singapore in the recent Bloomberg Covid resilience ranking as the top three countries able to provide its residents “a pre-pandemic quality of life”—with the exception of international travel.