In case you haven’t noticed New Zealand is experiencing record migration. 2014 saw 40,000 new migrants arrive in NZ and 2015 has a massive forecast migration of 60,000 + arriving. What’s contributing is that fewer Kiwis are leaving our shores.

Why are they coming and who are they? You may ask, Well the main reason they are coming is because New Zealand’s economy is doing very well with the term “Rock star economy” being flouted around within the media. It’s true that our economy is going through a growth stage, fuelled a lot with the Christchurch rebuild and our largest city Auckland already well into the middle of a property boom.

On the flip side to our economy going gang busters, the economies of the majority of countries around the world where most of these Immigrants are coming from are in a bad way, stagnating, high unemployment and no foreseeable growth. Ireland is one of these countries that is in the doldrums and suffice to say Irish Immigrants are everywhere, especially in Christchurch where they are heavily involved in the rebuild with a lot of them being qualified tradesmen.

What does this mean for New Zealand’s Property Market?

The last time NZ had record Migration was in 2003 with 42,500 migrants arriving, these figures are very similar to what we are experiencing now, but the key thing here is the year this last happened…2003, was the start of one of the biggest property booms NZ had ever seen, and this was driven amongst other things by the record high migration. That Boom lasted over 4 years.

So currently here we are in 2015 with record Migration happening again, Auckland is already in the midst of a surging property boom, Christchurch is also booming due to lack of accommodation and the high demand for housing, but what about the rest of New Zealand ?

Just about everywhere else in NZ other than AUK & CHCH has been pretty flat since 2008, but if you have your nose to the ground you would have picked a change in the wind, property is starting to take off with increased demand, Wellington, Dunedin and Tauranga are just some of the places this is happening with increased demand and sales with agents.

These record migration figures, something we haven’t experienced since the beginning of the last property boom, will fuel the property market. It will increase the demand for housing and push a lot of Aucklander’s to buy or invest out of Auckland due to their already sky high prices and low yields.

If you are a clever investor you will be looking in the areas that have been flat lining a long time, where house prices have been stagnant. This is where you will be buying on a low in a rising market, few investors take this approach but these are the ones who end up with huge gains.