How to invest in New Zealand mortgages from overseas, wherever you live

Yes, you can invest in New Zealand mortgages from overseas. If you qualify as a wholesale investor, you can co-fund individual secured New Zealand loans with HomeSec from anywhere: you review each loan’s pack by email, your name goes on the mortgage registered with LINZ, and principal and interest come back to you in New Zealand dollars.

HomeSec Business Finance, a private business lender lending since 2004, with its New Zealand office in Auckland, lends mostly its own money and on some loans invites wholesale investors to co-fund alongside it. Every loan on this programme is a New Zealand loan secured over New Zealand property, wherever the investor lives. Living abroad changes only three things: how your interest is taxed, the currency you think in, and how money moves. This guide takes each in turn.

Who co-funds New Zealand loans from abroad?

Mostly people with a reason to keep money in New Zealand dollars:

• Kiwis working overseas in London, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Gulf or North America, who expect to come home one day and want their savings earning in the currency they will spend.
• Parents and families offshore whose children or grandchildren have settled in New Zealand, or who spend part of every year here.
• Returning New Zealanders getting capital in place before the move back.
• Offshore companies, family trusts and family offices with New Zealand connections, looking for a specific asset they can identify rather than units in a fund.

The common thread is wanting to see exactly what your money is doing from the other side of the world. A pack can be read over breakfast in London and answered the same day. Australian-based investors are usually better served by our Australian programme at investoropportunities.com.au.

Why lend at home rather than where you live?

Three reasons come up again and again. The security sits in a legal system you already understand: a registered mortgage over New Zealand property, recorded on the title with LINZ and enforceable through the New Zealand courts. The income arrives in the currency many expats plan to spend. And the return is well above what cash earns here.

Co-funded loans pay 12% to 18% p.a. on the loans you choose, with each rate set loan by loan and shown in the pack. For comparison, New Zealand’s big banks were paying about 4.00% to 4.05% on 12-month term deposits in late September 2026, according to termdepositrates.co.nz. The gap is not a sign of weak borrowers. Most are established businesses using property equity, paying for short terms of typically 1 to 12 months, decisions within hours and settlement that can happen within days.

Are you still a New Zealand tax resident?

Settle this first, because it decides which tax applies to your interest. Residency depends on where you live and your ties here, not on your passport.

Under IRD’s residency rules:

• You are generally a New Zealand tax resident if you have a permanent place of abode here, even while you live overseas, or if you are in New Zealand for more than 183 days in any 12-month period.
• Without a permanent place of abode, you generally stop being resident once you have been away for more than 325 days in a 12-month period.

A permanent place of abode does not have to be a home you own, so ask your accountant to confirm your status before your first loan.

If you are still resident, your interest is treated like any other New Zealander’s, with resident withholding tax (RWT). For individuals, IRD’s RWT rates follow taxable income:

Companies and trustees choose from their own set of rates, and anyone who has not supplied an IRD number faces the 45% non-declaration rate.

How is interest taxed if you are non-resident?

Interest paid to a non-resident generally has non-resident withholding tax (NRWT) deducted at 15%. Where New Zealand has a double tax agreement with your country of residence, that usually falls to 10%. For an investor not associated with the payer, NRWT is generally the final New Zealand tax on the interest, according to IRD’s NRWT guide and PwC’s summary.

There is a second route. A payer that registers as an approved issuer, and registers the security, can pay a 2% approved issuer levy in place of deducting NRWT. The levy is not available between associated persons. Whether it fits a particular loan depends on the payer and the security, so raise it with your accountant rather than assuming it.

Two more points:

• Your home country may tax the interest too. Many countries allow a credit for New Zealand tax already withheld.
• Interest carries no GST. Lending is a financial service, which is an exempt supply under the Goods and Services Tax Act 1985.

Your accountant will confirm how each of these applies to you.

What does the process look like from another time zone?

Much as it does from Ponsonby or Fendalton. None of it needs you in the room.

The full sequence is described in how the co-funding process works.

How do you move money in and out of New Zealand?

A New Zealand bank account in your own name, or your company’s or trust’s, keeps things simple. If you kept an account when you left, use it. Send funds across by international transfer a few days before settlement, pay your contribution from that account when the loan settles, and have principal and interest paid back into it at maturity.

The reason is timing. Settlement dates are fixed and international payments can take several days, so holding New Zealand dollars here in advance avoids a scramble. If you need your money before a loan matures, HomeSec will buy out your share and repay your principal on request.

No New Zealand account? Our Funding Manager will go through the options with you before your first loan. Nothing is committed until you have chosen a loan and are happy with how the money will flow.

What does holding New Zealand dollars mean for you?

Every figure on a loan is in NZ dollars: the amount lent, the rate and each repayment. What that means depends on your plans.

For Kiwis abroad, that is often the attraction: the money is already in the currency they will come home to. For offshore families it can be a deliberate way to diversify. Decide at the outset whether you intend to convert, and time your transfers around it.

Which wholesale route suits an investor living overseas?

Co-funding is open only to wholesale investors under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013, and the same New Zealand tests apply wherever you live. Most co-funders qualify in one of three ways:

• Eligible investor. You certify in writing that your previous experience acquiring or disposing of financial products lets you assess the merits of the transaction, your own information needs and the adequacy of the information provided, and you state your grounds. A financial adviser, qualified statutory accountant or lawyer must confirm the certificate in writing.
• Investment activity. For example, you have held a portfolio of specified financial products worth $1 million or more at some point in the last two years.
• Large. Your net assets or turnover exceeded $5 million at the end of each of the last two financial years, which often suits a company or family office.

Certificates last two years. The person confirming yours needs to meet the Act’s definition of those roles, so if all your advisers are overseas, raise it with us early. Once you qualify, you choose how much to put into each loan, from NZ$100,000. Our guide for wholesale investors covers every route in full.

What protects your capital when you can’t see the property?

The security does. Each loan is secured by a registered first or second mortgage over New Zealand residential or commercial property, with your name on it for your exact contribution. HomeSec lends up to 80% of value on residential property and less on commercial, over existing property only, with no construction or development. The complete criteria are in our lending rules.

The market deserves a straight answer. After the late-2021 peak, New Zealand house prices fell about 16% on the REINZ index over roughly 18 months and then moved broadly sideways, while Canterbury, Otago and Southland have since reached new highs. A loan written at no more than 80% of today’s value, for a matter of months, is exposed to only a slice of a fall like that. Our overview of the New Zealand property market has the figures.

If a borrower does not repay, HomeSec deals with it, wherever you happen to be. The mortgage is enforceable through the New Zealand courts under the Property Law Act 2007, beginning with a default notice that allows at least 20 working days to put things right. If the property is then sold, the seller must take reasonable care to obtain the best price reasonably obtainable at the time of sale. HomeSec runs the process with specialist lawyers, with its own money in the same loan, and keeps you updated by SMS and email. Our explainer on what happens if a borrower defaults goes through each step.

What identity details will we ask for?

Before your first loan we verify who you are and, if you are investing through a company or trust, the entity and the people who control it. Requirements vary a little by country and structure, and our Funding Manager will send you a precise list. It is done once, up front, so it never holds up a loan you want to fund.

Ready to see a New Zealand loan pack?

Packs read comfortably on a phone, in any time zone, and there is never pressure to decide quickly. Register your interest and our Funding Manager will contact you by email, phone or video call, whichever you prefer.