North Shore Commercial Property Group
27th June
North Shore Golf Club
Having worked overseas for more than 15 years before returning to Aotearoa in 2018, Jarrod Kerr brings a truly global perspective to his role and insights.
Overall, there’s a feeling of optimism at Kiwibank. Yes, the next six to 12 months will continue to be tough, but things should be better by this time next year, and better still in two years’ time. Kiwibank itself was responsible for 70 per cent of all business lending in the last year. “Credit is the oil in the economic engine.”
Jarrod walked guests through the data for various important aspects, including the lifting of tax thresholds, household spending patterns, productivity (“really bad over the last 10 years”), and unemployment (expected to rise to 5.2 per cent by the end of 2024).
The national deficit is currently $12 billion, approximately 44 per cent of the country’s GDP. Jarrod compared this to the US (110 per cent), the UK (100 per cent), and Japan (260 per cent). “Many [countries] would love to start where we are.”
He argued that infrastructure spending is “a disgrace”, stating that S&P confirms NZ could double its debt and not be downgraded. He reflected on climate change and its impact not just on the economy generally, but on insurance especially.
Overseas inflation is dropping, which is obviously good news, as that’s “half the basket”. Jarrod’s top tip? “Buy chocolate now!”
More good news: international tourism is picking up again, although Chinese visitors are still missing.
As interest rates fall, Jarrod advised how borrowers and savers may wish to maximise or mitigate the effects. For example, a saver might choose to consider a five-year term deposit, whereas someone with a mortgage probably would not want to lock in that rate for five years.
John Darroch from North Harbour Valuers (NHV) then gave an overview of the local commercial property landscape. Amongst his observations were that hybrid working is here to stay and that the area is running out of smaller spaces as SMEs return to the market. Owner-occupiers are also coming back; there’s been an increase in investors this year.
Janet Marshall, Mike Ryan, and Matt Prentice from Colliers rounded off the evening by sharing the key facts and figures for rents, yields, vacancy rates, etc, for office and industrial premises across Auckland. They illustrated this data with information about recent local transactions.
