Hollywood hits new zealand

Do you remember that creepy film The Ring? I do, or at least I remember the nightmares I had for months afterwards - now it seems the star of the film, actor Martin Henderson, wants to escape his LA life through a lens and prove that there really is no place like home...

Martin Henderson has the world at his feet with his string of Hollywood blockbusters to his name and a bevy of female fans, but what the 34-year-old actor really craves is a slice of his homeland.

Henderson first shot to fame in New Zealand soap Shortland Street and then appeared opposite Naomi Watts in the 2002 The Ring; starred in Little Fish with Cate Blanchett and now in the World War II drama Home by Christmas.

Currently based in trendy Venice Beach, Los Angeles, Henderson is looking to escape from the media attention and showbiz buzz of LA and is house hunting in his native New Zealand.

His recent film, Home by Christmas, is being filmed in Wellington and, whilst he was there he took some time off to view beach properties on New Zealand's beautiful North Island, close to where he grew up in Auckland.

Henderson said, "I have wanted to get a place back here for the last few years and would love to have a little home here.

"I haven't yet found the right place but will continue to look and take my time,' he said.

"There are many aspects of living in the United States that I thoroughly enjoy but, as they say, there's no place like home and I think that is especially true of New Zealand.

"I have an intense love of this land, and that connection to the countryside and coastal beauty stays with me no matter where I go," he added.

Henderson is not alone in wanting to pick up a slice of New Zealand real estate.

International property buyers have long been drawn to The ‘City of Sails' which sprawls over a narrow isthmus between the sparkling waters of the Waitemata and Manukau Harbours.

The Auckland Harbour Bridge offers spectacular views of Auckland city and the islands of the gulf and sugar white beaches and cosmopolitan living are both a mere stones throw away.

Last year, more than 22 per cent of realestate.co.nz's browsers were from outside New Zealand and that figure is rising. Most of the interested buyers are from Britain, Australia and the United States.

British buyers are mainly moving to the Land of the Long White Cloud for a better quality of life and the vast majority of overseas buyers are far more motivated by the lifestyle that they want to buy into, rather than what the market is doing.