Business goes on

Amongst the talk of doom and gloom that seems to come in a different form almost every day out of Europe, our view on the economic future for New Zealand is a little different. We recognise that in a global village a butterfly hatching in Greece may  cause a tsunami here, but most of the time business just goes on as normal. Businesses need homes. Leases end. Businesses grow. Businesses shrink.

As all this happens it is inevitable that businesses need to find new premises. They may not be in much of a hurry and they may not be as motivated to purchase as they once were, but business still does go on and therefore opportunities still exist for those of us in the property industry.

What is however worrying is that on the one hand the government's tax take is reduced by several billion dollars and on the other hand there are increasing numbers of unemployed and beneficiaries clambering for more.

Less coming in and more going out is never a recipe for a healthy economy.

More than that, the big concern for us is that we see from a number of quarters, service levels dropping and less hunger to make the sale. Usually in a recession one would expect that service levels will increase and the hunger for the deal increases. We are not seeing that at the moment. We won't mention the name of the prominent real estate agency of whom we attempted to call four agents. None answered their phones and none returned messages. We can only presume their hunger was being satisfied at Ponsonby Cafes, rather than by making sales. Our hunger for their deal was satisfied elsewhere.

On the other hand it has been a pleasure to encounter the old style agents who still scurry between vendor and purchaser, doing their best to consummate a deal before the sun goes down. Long may the hunger for a deal continue.