During the past week, on July 24, we acknowledged National Property Managers Day, an initiative of the New Zealand Real Estate Institute. This day is building momentum across the country to recognise, in my opinion, the unsung heroes of our industry.
It is estimated that approximately 600,000 rental properties across New Zealand are home to between 1.3 and 1.6 million people. At the coalface, Property Managers play a critical role in delivering quality housing and tenancy management services. They deserve to be celebrated, and we did exactly that!
On Wednesday morning, National Property Managers Day 2024, we awarded our outstanding performers for the 12 months to June 2024: Sue Christie, Nikki Ramage, and Krysta Hoani (Top Performing Property Managers of the Year), Lucy Byrne (Top Performing BDM of the Year), and Katy Walker and Sophia Goodwin (Support Team Rockstars).
They will embark on a luxury VIP wine tour, tastings, and lunch in the beautiful Waitakere area in West Auckland. Each team member also received a personalised, humorous certificate of thanks, and we had a blast sharing laugh-out-loud moments. To top it off, we celebrated an early “Happy Birthday” for Christine Ryan and enjoyed a delicious morning tea from the French Cafe in Mt Albert as we welcomed Laurence Pommier to our Parnell team. It was a great start to a Wednesday!
If there’s one thing I can attest to with 150% confidence, it is how dedicated we are to delivering exceptional service to our landlords and tenants. We are immensely grateful to our Property Managers, Business Development, and Admin Teams who work, day-in and day-out to uphold our company values.
Our latest CPI inflation numbers were also released this week, with results for the June 2024 quarter coming in at 0.4%, lower than the RBNZ’s prediction of 0.6%. More good news came with the latest food price inflation data, which showed that food prices fell by 0.3% over the 12 months to June 2024, the first decline in six years.
Many are now predicting the OCR will start dropping soon. Recently, several bank economists have moved their forecasts for interest rate cuts from mid-2025 to earlier dates. Large parts of the market are now expecting a 0.5% OCR reduction in November. With two more OCR announcements before then—in August and October—there’s an increasing likelihood that cuts could come sooner, which would be welcome news for struggling Kiwi mortgage borrowers.
I personally facilitated a multi-offer sale on Tuesday. The property in Mt Eden has been managed by Goodwins for many years. The preparation for sale was seamless, with marketing going ‘live’ on Thursday 18 July, and the first viewing on Saturday the 20th. A busy open home with 9 groups resulted in 6 offers within 48 hours, and the property sold unconditionally on Tuesday morning. It was a wonderful result for a valued long-time landlord-client.
As interest rates drop, consumer confidence will rise. Although our economy has suffered significant damage and recovery will be slow, optimism is growing.
