It's challenging. I think for the investors out there, the maintenance costs, the insurance costs in particular, and of course the council rates just bang bang bang. I certainly expect house prices to go up. I mean where they sit on average at the moment is basically exactly where they were four years ago, so early twenty twenty one, by our lookers. For the economy to improve, when does that
lead to people's feelings about the labor market changing? When do people feel a greater amount of job security?
Cura and Welcome to Shed Lunch, brought to you by Shehz's. I'm Helen Madison. Today on the program, we take a pulse check of the property market. Will more interest rate can'ts revive house prices that have been down more than twenty percent in some regions, or will investors and sellers be disappointed? Independent economist Tony Alexander has been mulling over the numbers and the sentiment before we dive in. Here's some important information for you to consider.
Investing in risk you might lose the money you start with. We recommend talking to a licensed financial advisor. We also recommend reading product disclosure documents. Before deciding to invest. Everything you're about to see and hear is current at the time of recording.
Welcome Tony. Great to see you in person in the studio for the first time.
Yes, yes, now it's good to be here in person rather than just down the remote camera from Australia.
Sometimes. That's right, let's get into it. Then, interest rates are on the downward cycles, and I know you've said before that you think the cuts that we're having will finish or bottom out mid twenty twenty five. Last week the Reserve Bank did what we thought it would do and they reduce rates by fifty basis points. So we're three point seventy five anything in that monetary policy statement which a company. That announcement has made you think differently from where the bottom might be.
Well, previously I thought maybe three point five percent would be the bottom. But the Reserve Bank, first of all, they brought forward in time by about a year when they see monetary policy reaching its bottom, and the low point they've got there is either three or three point twenty five percent. In the document it says three point one percent. Well, we're not going to get three point
one percent. It's going to be three or three point twenty five, and I think they've given a strong benefit of the doubt to the upturn they see in the economy not really driving much inflation. So maybe three point twenty five percent, I guess, is where I think we're going to see the bottom the for the official cash rate, and chances are that's going to be around near the middle of the.
Year, so similar to what you saw before. What about house prices though, because this seems to be quite a bit of optimism out there that these this downward cycling rates will actually lift prices, which, as we know, have been down They've been twenty percent in some places. What's your view on where house prices are going, because you have seen one stage they could even go up.
Yeah, yeah, well, I certainly expect house prices to go up. I mean where they sit on average at the moment is basically exactly where they were four year years ago, so early twenty twenty one, when we're already seeing a bit of a surge with the pandemic and very low interest rates and Alvir's gone et cetera. Just recently, when I look at the data from ARII and Z in particular, it seems to me they're not really going anywhere quite frankly.
We saw a bit of a movement upward twenty twenty three with the first home buyers going into the market, and then that sort of faded away, and again in twenty twenty four. We saw a bit of a movement upwards around about the middle of the year July, August, et cetera, when talk a rows of interest rates going down, but that sort of faded a bit over summer as well.
So for the moment, I'd say the market is flat, but I would expect, yes, interest rates going down, people rolling on to low interest rates for out a bit of cash. It's going to be I think when people have a bit more confidence about their jobs, the labor market improving, that's maybe more when it's reasonable to think about we're going to have a long string of small increases each month coming along.
It does seem to be maybe anecdotally, a lot of listings out there at the moment, and I do wonder whether it's about sellers are readjusting their expectations when it comes to price, because it would appear that it's a bit of a buyer's market and that sellers really maybe can't get what they thought. They did. Look this week at Ryman Healthcare, the retirement operator that's listed, and that's
going to raise another one billion dollars in capital. And one of the reasons they said they were doing that is that people that were thinking about coming into the retirement village hadn't been able to sell their houses at the price they liked, so they've deferred coming in. So Ryman's got extra stock that's empty. So yeah, I just wondered what your perspective on that was.
Yeah, Well, if you look at the data from real estate dot co dot Nz, they have total listings sitting around about thirty two to thirty three thousand at the moment, that's up about eighteen one eight percent from a year ago. Compare that with under fourteen thousand in the middle of twenty twenty one, So it's quite a change from back then. And I guess what I'm perceiving in the housing market now is that there are more people willing to sell.
That's what happened in twenty twenty three. The first buyers went into the market are the first home buyers. Then some of the investors moved into the market, and then a lot of investors sellers. They stepped into the market, and we saw a similar sort of thing last year, and so there are a number of people who want to sell, get on with their lives, et cetera. But it is definitely strongly a buyer's market. In my survey of real estate agents, I've got a net forty percent
of them saying it's a buyer's market still. And when it comes to the vendors willing to capitulate too, many have memories of where the prices were, you know, two three years or so ago, So a lot of them still aren't willing to discount, you know, to meet the market and get on with their life, whether it be
retirement or shifting, et cetera. So there could easily still be a little bit more downward price adjustment to the very near future, but I think it's more going to be the buyers coming back into the market later this year as the employment situation looks better. But certainly the vendors are out there.
Where does that leave the investors then? I mean, perhaps because the prices are depressed, there's some not so much bargains, but there's some reasonable pickings.
Yeah, it's challenging, I think for the investors out there because the cost of running a rental business is now so much more than before, the maintenance costs, the insurance cost in particular, and of course the council rates just bang bang bang, everyone around the country being told, well, this is what you're getting this year, Like in the Hut Valley there, I think lober Hunt it might have been fifteen percent they're getting this year, and plans are
for the same next year, bang bang, you know for a few years after that. So that just changes the dynamic and the investors have to think, Okay, costs are going up, what is my ability to get extra rent coming through? Not good? At the moment. I've got about a net twenty one percent or so of landlords in a survey that I run saying it is very difficult to get a good tend the moment a year ago in net twenty percent was saying it's easy to get
a good tenant. So for the investors, I know, I see some commentary out there people saying we see the investors coming back into the market as buyers. I think that flow is relatively small out there. The bigger change is the investors as sellers. So again in my survey of the property investors, I have about a net fourteen percent of the landlord saying they're looking to sell now.
The last time that measure was positive, as in more looking to buy than sell, was about March of twenty twenty three, and the proportions saying they want to buy gross number it's unchanged about twenty one percent, So twenty one percent of the landlord saying yeah, I'd like to buy, same now as a year and a half or two years ago. What's changed is that back there early twenty twenty three, I only had about twenty percent saying I'm
looking to sell. Now it's thirty five percent. So this is the change in the investor market in the past sor twelve to eighteen months. More in the of the investors are looking to sell. The numbers don't quite add up for them, and they're not expect acting rapid capital gain in the near future. So that to me is the main change out there, not necessarily any great change in investors buying. There's more investors looking to sell and maybe put the money somewhere.
Else Tony, when you say investor money is probably going elsewhere, do we have any inkling on where that might be, is it listed property trust? Is it even commercial property, which I think has come back a little well.
Certainly people have had a strong interest in commercial property for the past three to four years. With the residential market moving backwards, investors, when we're looking for something different, I'm having to learn about earthquake ratings, et cetera. Out there, there has actually been relatively good demand from tenants for commercial property, or more essentially in terms of upgrading. A lot of businesses. They need to boost their productivity, they
need to look for cost savings, et cetera. So there's a lot of restructuring happening in the say the logistics side. The warehouse over there doesn't work any longer. You need a bigger one over there, meaning you can close two or the other warehouses. You want something maybe near one of the motorways, etc. There seems to be a lot
of construction of new commercial buildings in that regard. The demand for office space has sort of shifted towards strong support for the prime stuff out there, not so much for the lower grades as yet. But yeah, that there's actually been strong interest for the commercial property I think for some time. I guess the relevant thing there is that when interstrates go down, the interest in commercial property
goes up. My view is that interstrate's going down that are relevant to the commercial property investors three five ten year interst rates. We're probably just about near the end of those interrastrate falls, So I don't necessarily think commercial property demand is going to rise all that much over and above what you'd naturally expect with the economy starting to improve this year.
If we look around the country, it does appear to be a bit of a mixed picture. If we think back to the residential property market, I think in your surveys of real estate agents that look like Northland was still a bit subdued. Auckland has a ton of listings. I think they have plenty was coming back but strongly. Harks Bay similar, Wellington still in the dulgrums. South Island a bit of a bright spot. What's your view on that picture? Yeah?
Yeah, Regionally it is reasonably diverse. Christ Church, I think there's good economic support in terms of the tourist numbers. There's still recovery to happen there. Rejuvenation of the CBD will rebuilding of it, et cetera. The affordability of housing is a big positive as well. So I've long had a positive view on christ Church slash Canterbury, and when I say Canterbury, South Canterbury of course with a dairy payout being pretty strong, so that's going to be positive
for Irashburton's tim marous et cetera. Or setting some of
the freezing works are lost down in tomorrow. For instance, in Auckland Yere there's an oversupplied town houses and that's sort of dominating the market in people's thinking at the moment, especially out the west Auckland direction on northwest, and it's going to take a while for that to run through, and part of that running through is then there will be a further decrease in townhouse construction and it'll set the scene for maybe it's eighteen months from now, people
will look around and go not too many spare townhouses, Maybe we need to build some more, and then there'll be a lag and building some more over twenty twenty six, So that cycle is going to be interesting for Auckland. A wee bit further out, christ Church maybe has a little bit of oversupply of some townhouses in the CBD, just a little bit there Wellington. People have to be careful. There's Wellington City and then lower Heart, Upper Hut Capity
Coast and back towards Poiriuha. For Wellington City, there are challenges under Labors government. We saw the number of public servants go up about eighteen one eight thousand, and obviously a lot of them are losing their jobs. Now there's clearly going to be more restructuring, slash redundancies in the public service. The government has to address it. Seventeen billion
dollar deficit. There's extra money going to have to clearly be able allocated for defense as well, and so that is going to keep Wellington depressed for I think you quite all of this year quite frankly, maybe into bit of twenty twenty six for the city, but not necessarily the same for the Hut Valley and up Capiti Coast. There's just so much development going to be happening up there, Transmission Gully Motorway in place, and of course the expressway
getting extended to north of Livin as well. So have a positive view there. Why Kato Taranaki, they're going to benefit again from the dairy payout being relatively good. Not that I have any particularly divergent view on New Plymouth. It's just a good always a good solid underpinning there. Quite frankly, yeah, Toweronger may have to wait till there's a bit more strength in Auckland and then the user will sell your house in Auckland, get a good price,
retire across to Toweronger. That engine will start a chugging away again. But it's not really doing it at the moment.
Let's think about mortgage holders. I mean, I think at least half have fixed at quite short terms. So we're talking six months in one year. With rates nearly bottoming, people are probably thinking what do do and do you think we're going to see a change to those longer term rates. That said, this week there seems to be a bit of a war between ASP and Westpac that two year rate at four point ninety nine. What's your thoughts?
Well, when west Pac for two weeks had three years at four point nine to nine, I jumped up and down and said now that is what I would take basically, and it didn't. The other banks didn't jump in. It didn't last, and so yeah, I see the competition is for the two year period. If I had a mortgage at the moment, and I was thinking I'll get a lot of it repaid in the next two years. I personally would probably take the two years at four point
nine to nine percent. I see no great benefit any longer. Personally, it's sticking floating six months, twelve months. Those rates will come down a bit further. Do I think people need to hurry. I don't see the upward leg of the monetary policy cycles starting again until maybe late twenty six, maybe twenty twenty seven. But that's the next shift in the market. In terms of thinking about interest rates, it's all been monetary policy is easing.
It's easing.
Eventually it stops seizing. Oh, that's going to be later on this year, second half of this year.
Okay.
I wonder when it goes up back up again. The market's not really there yet. When that happens, you'll probably start to see them upward movement in the three to five year wholesale borrowing costs for the banks and those interrast rates rising. That might be a story for next year. Most people, being kiwis, are only going to fix for two years, three years. A few will jump in the even when the five year rate was at two point nine nine percent. Hardly anybody fix back then from twenty
twenty to twenty twenty one. But most people are probably going to be reasonably happy in the two year period. And what's going to happen Take ourselves two years from now, so that's twenty twenty seven. Interest rates might be going up by then. So that's the difficulty. You fix two years at the moment because it seems to be pretty attractive. Your rate's going to mature right when there's upside risk on the interest rates coming forward, and then you're going
to have a bit of a problem. So that's one reason I was such in favor of three years four ninety nine. Maybe it comes back again and again I'd probably say that's what I would personally go for.
So a conundrum for people fixing longer or shorter. Yep, it's almost like timing the market.
Sometimes something sticks out and you say, well, I don't really have a view on where rates are going to go in the near future, but this one seems screen's quite good. And that was the two ninety nine to five year one from twenty twenty twenty one, and I think, like I say, close to five percent were just under for three years I mean, if there was a four or five year rate, I'd probably take that at four
point nine nine percent. If one of the banks was going to offer that, they probably won't because the competition where people are looking is more in the two year time frame.
Quite frank, Yeah, and that's hence why I think ASP and Wespeck have done what they had And also that seems to be one of the few moves. Most of the rate moves since the OCR last week is floating.
Yeah, well, floating is really closely tied to the cash rate. It goes up, goes up, it goes down. The float at the more rate will come down. The one year fixed rates will also tend to move, but once you get out further along the year curve, this reflects expectations
of where the market is going to go. And the reason we haven't seen like fresh cuts in three, four or five year mortgage rates is because the markets had already factored in that the low point for the cash rate isn't going to be twenty twenty six or twenty seven, it's going to be the end of this year. So the Reserve Bank merely validated what the market had already moved.
Towards and that's why most of us are now thinking we are probably at the low point in the cycle for three, four or five year fixed rates, bank borrowing costs, and the mortgage rates. Two years there could be a little bit more downside, but I really think it's going to be pretty limited from here.
With those longer term rates too. Isn't that what the geopolitical kind of world economy and the effects that it has. Isn't that more something that affects those rates and those shorter term right?
Yeah, most definitely. If there's a big shock out there, then the Reserve Bank will respond one way or another. Are to that, And of course they expressed a lot of uncertainty in their monetary policy statement about what's going to happen in the world economy, because well, duh, none of us know exactly what is going to happen. You think to yourself, Okay, if tariffs go up, there's more inflation. Oh, interstrates will be higher. But if tariffs go up, maybe
that depresses world growth. Oh that means less inflation, That means interstrates go down. You just got to take it as it comes, quite frankly, See what's going to develop out of all of this. So there is a lot of uncertainty for the whole interrastrate structure still out there. If we're looking ahead it where interstrates are likely to go in the very near future. I certainly think it's
reasonable to expect that come the next review April. I think it's early April, they will cut by I think not half but quarter of a percent, and then there's probably one more after that, So whatever that is six or eight weeks after early April. I guess where I differ from many others is that I don't think they'll take it down to three percent. I think they'll get to the three point twenty five percent and pretty much
say that's probably going to be it. But again, the uncertainty out there in the world we're living in a Trumpian politics, economics, international environment. We've just got to hang on for the ride. Quite frankly, let's.
Jump back to construction and consense. That's usually a bit of a litmus test as to how things are going. I do note that renovations seem to be back in vogue. Can you tell us a bit about that.
Yeah, that's interesting that in my Monthly Spending Plans survey one of the I think there's only two areas which have shown much of a change recently. One is a few more people are thinking about buying a house to live in themselves. I think that's the first home buyers still looking to take advantage of the opportunity out there
with not much competition from investors. And the other one is that things are still relatively depressed and terms of people saying I'm going to buy a motor vehicle or appliance. But for the home renovations, there's definitely a strong upward trend which has gone through there, and maybe for some people it's a feeling of there's a few more tradees out there now because house building is falling away. There's a few more people offering their services electrical plumbing and
a carpentry, et cetera. So there's an opportunity maybe to get some of that work done without having to pay an absolute arm and a leg in order to get it completed and run the job. The risk of the job's not going to be done, you know, for quite some time if they shoult off to something that's going
to pay better in the near term. So I think it's that it's also the case, I think that there's always the older generation out there looking to improve things, heading into retirement or fresh into it, and it looks like some of them are deciding, look, I've waited long enough unless just finally get this place looking okay. But it is a bit of a surprising thing there. It is an area of spending growth.
Bathrooms and kitchens predominantly rather than great, big new housing.
Does sound like, yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeahs a bit of an upgrading of the existing stock or the places that people already own out there. I don't think my survey there is capturing people saying renovations. Oh, that's the granny flat I'm putting out the back. I don't think they're including that particular item in there, Tony.
Just with construction. Let's unpack that little more. What are the dynamics there.
Yeah, the dynamic would be that when you get residential real estate turnover of existing you know, used houses picking up, it eventually leads to the number of consents being issued for new houses to be built picking up. And we've seen a bit of an increase in real estate turnover. That's about seventy two thousand in the past year. A year a year and a half ago it was fifty eight thousand. So yes, he's an upward trend, but it's relatively mild. And given the oversupply of townhouses which sits
out there and developers. You see developers that put some of these properties into the rental pool, and once they see the housing market moving, they're going to offer them up for sale. It's going to keep things constrained into sort of twenty twenty six, the year. I think the townhouse construction keeps going down into twenty twenty six and the finance requirement, you know, pre sales, that sort of thing. Whereas for individual standalone houses, i'd see that rising before
the end of this year. Sort of just a combination of not so much of an oversupply in that market and yeah, just the effect of the interest rates off coming through and the labor market perception starting to improve as well. But it's going to be a different dynamic townhouses versus standalone.
And is there any areas in particular where you think construction will be more buoyant.
I suppose Again on christ Church, I've got a positive view there. The population movement that is happening down there. For affordability reasons. All the growth we see down at Rollston obviously in particular, but also north of the city with the Northern Corridor opening up there, so that's definitely positive. Outside of that, again, up the Capity Coast with the expressway network is very positive also, an aging population looking to retire up there if they can find the land there.
There is actually a bit of a shortage of land in some areas up there. For Auckland, there's going to be expansion up the Northwest area for the next few decades, quite frankly, but that's where the over supply of the townhouses is and where some of these negative stories are around it. They get so roasting hot you're having to run your AC to cool the place down. So you know, us key with is when we when we have a house building boom of some regard, it's like something always
seems to go wrong. It's either leaking or in this case, ye're just getting too hot in the upstairs room too many windows.
Quite frankly, let's look at inflation. That's always a big bogie, and it does feel from what the Reserve Bank has said that things are in check two point two percent, and that's kind of their main mandate. You've talked a lot about cyclical inflation, which, as I understand it is almost a natural phenomenon when there's a recovery, when there's an upturn, you're probably going to get a bit of inflation. You've always worn that that's probably around the corner and
not as far as way as we think. Have you changed your mind on that?
Yeah, No, No, I still definitely got that view. I think some of the upside risk is greater because of the risk of tariffs going up, for instance. So now I'm still of the view. And what I look at there, there's a number of things. One of them is the A and Z's Monthly Business Outlook Survey. On average since nineteen ninety two, inflation has average two point three percent since then, on average, and net twenty six percent of businesses have said, yeah, in the next twelve months, I'm
going to increase my prices. That was eighty two percent net two and a half or so years ago, so that was horrible inflation seven percent or so. That got down to thirty net thirty five percent the middle of last year. It's now gone up to a net forty six percent of businesses saying I'm going to increase my prices in the next twelve months, not now, but when
the opportunity presents itself. So that says to me, when the customer flows are stronger, because businesses have got compressed margins at the moment, and because many of their costs are still going up. When the opportunity presents itself and they think I can get a price increase away and people are still going to keep buying my product, they're
going to do it. And I guess maybe I see some of that from later this year and especially in twenty twenty six, not at the moment unless you're a council or electricity company or you know, oligopoly generally or monopoly in the case of a council. But that's my perception of the risk further out now. The Reserve Bank is not focused on that for the moment. That's something I think that they'll be looking at later this year.
In America, there's a little bit of a look at it for their economy, but yeah, it's a focus ICEE coming a bit further out, and look, if it looks worrying, you'll get the longer term interest rates and the medium term rates going up before the end of this year. We'll just have to see how that pans out.
So mor gaduate relief at the moment, but it could be that we're going to be paying more.
For goods and services eventually. I mean the Yeah, the inflation rate is going to go up. And this is one I guess a big problem for the investors, of course, because one of the key area of inflation where it's coming from and their cost increases is the rates. Maybe not so much the insurance premiums, there's a wee bit of a plataum in going there, but the council rates going up. They've got a monopoly. There's nothing you can
do about it, and so that is affecting. I guess for a lot of older people, their thoughts about what can I afford to spend in retirement? Can I even afford to stay in this same house? I would expect to events that leads to some people are downshifting out into the regions because they're going to be able to free up some cash in order to pay the pay
the council rates. And for some of the generation below them are the middle generation older than the kids, which are going to Australia for some of them increasingly, the answer is, and this is just one factor in there. I'm following my kids to Australia. I've got a neighbor during that they're selling up and following their two kids across to the Gold Coast. So that generation the late thirties, forties, early fifties they go, I'm out of here.
Man.
That is a new phenomena out there in terms of some population loss for New Zealand. And some of them would have been people who might otherwise have been thinking time to prepare for retirement. Let's get an investment property. No, they're not going to they're going to look at going overseas.
But look, you often spend quite a bit of time actually in Australia. You've got property there yourself. What are the pickings there? Is it better to be trying to buy property over there if you want to have that esset.
I've got no view on that. I mean, I'm not a property investor myself, so I've got no idea about
what's a reasonable yield or anything like that. The Australian market, you've got to be careful because the rules vary from state to state, like in Queensland as a foreigner, even tho it's a keywet you'll pay an extra ten percent sort of stamp duty, three percent local stamp duty and then an extra seven percent foreigner buying situation it varies in the other states, but first of all, you need to talk to a lawyer or accountant over there, figure
out what's going on there, and just be aware there is quite a difference between the top eight capital cities and the regional towns. It's dynamic which is more volatile than we have in New Zealand. They talk about sea change people retiring to be near the sea side, or tree change that are going out into the countryside to be near more trees, and that dynamic is quite different from in New Zealand because the countryside here is not
really all that far away from our main cities. So people definitely need to do a bit of research over there and don't always assume that the places are going to be greatly cheaper, especially if you're looking at one of the major cities. Sydney is vastly expensive, for instance, so do your research.
Also, we've had changes here or are about to happen with foreign buyers. I wondered whether that had had any effect or because it's such a high net worth situation that it may it's all too early to have any idea.
Well, given New Zealand First is in the governing coalition and they're opposed to reopening the housing market. Generally, if we get any easing up, it's only going to be for the more expensive houses out there. It's really not going to be relevant for the housing market of interest to ninety nine percent of people out there, quite frankly, So yeah, no, I don't see that one really coming along and causing an extra bush upward in our housing market. It's just not going to happen.
Other factors migration. We've talked a little bit about the fact that the brain drain an uprightists are going to Australia and probably buying them and probably not coming back. Their parents are following them. As you've just said, what about people coming into the country, And that usually has an effect on the property market, doesn't it usually?
But we've got to be careful because we've had this period of weakness in the housing market, even though we had like in the year October twenty twenty three and the record net gain of one hundred and thirty five thousand people. So the correlation is not necessarily as strong as people think when people talk about a correlation of all the net migration numbers driving Auckland in particular. People
used to always talk about about that. Well, that's usually only if the market is rising already, and they go market's rising, I wonder why, Oh, the net migration is strong and they grab onto that. But most migrants coming into New Zealand they're not going to be able to buy a house for a long period of time. They've probably got no money. They're coming into New Zealand because they've got no money and they can get a job and build their life and their family, you know, starting
up a new here. So you know there's probably x billion two three billion people overseas who if you gave them the ticket, will be on the plane tomorrow and come across to New Zealand. From an accommodation point of view, it would have upward pressure on our market. But in terms of a house buying, it'll depends if we buy the properties to go and rent to them would be the main dynamic there. I've proven, I think to myself from over thirty years ago, and I reckon the other
economists have reached the same Cook conclusion. You cannot forecast net migration flows in New Zealand, not even six to twelve months ahead. You cannot do it. So we take these things as they come.
Tony keen to find out what your outlook for the year is now that we've had another cut and possibly will have some more. But it's not just about interest rate cuts.
No, No, there's more in the mix there. There are definitely some positives for the New Zealand economy. The Reserve Bank predicting the economy will grow about zero point six percent a quarter from here on out possible. I think they could be a little bit optimistic. But you're the positives of the interest rate pain easing away and disappearing. That's completely different from saying there's an interest rate boost coming along, which is more your pandemic pece GFC that
sort of thing. The dairy payout, so that's positive for the dairying regions, not so much of an impact on the rest of the country.
There.
World economy neither here nor there too greatly I think, and causing too much to happen there. Construction, yeah, infrastructure it's a slow burn to improve, so that'll be a stimulant, but it's incremental over a long period of time. Commercial I definitely see some positives here on the commercial construction side, house building, standalone houses improving later this year. Townhouse construction
just falling straight lining away. I think to some point in twenty twenty six is going to be a restraint on growth. I think there's scope for a few more foreign students to come into New Zealand. On the tourism side, yeah, I guess maybe the government's new campaign will drag a few more people into New Zealand. It's got a lot of publicity overseas, so it's so good on them. It doesn't boost the productivity in our economy, it doesn't boost our income per capita or at all, just more people
serving in the cafeterias, cafes, et cetera. But overall, my outlookers for the economy to improve, and I guess my focus will be mainly when does that lead to people's feelings about the labor market changing? When do people feel a greater amount of job security. I'll be able to see that straight away in my real estate survey, because I asked the agents and they're right at the cold
face and they'll see it. I'd'm thinking that there's sometime in the second half of this year and that will then I think flow through to the housing market putting in a better performance. But for the moment while, I've still got about a net fifty one percent of the agents saying all people are worried about their jobs or sorry, a gross fifty one percent. It's just going to keep a bit of a dampner on the housing market for the first half of this year.
Thanks Tony for coming in and joining us in the studio today, and thanks everyone for joining in. You can watch Shared Lunch on YouTube or follow the podcast on your favorite podcast app. Leave us a racing and tell us what you'd like to hear next. Ma Taba