OneMahurangi

from Mahurangi Matters_Issue 453_24 April 2023

by Localmatters

Call for long-term view on food production

Murray Chapman, Manager https://onemahurangi.co.nz

An invitation to a recession

What happens when you are invited to a recession and you decline the invite?

A couple of days ago I made the mistake of watching the news on TV and apart from the sports coverage, the rest of the bulletin left me feeling quite depressed and down for the rest of the evening. I have always believed that in a lot of cases we talk ourselves into a recession. Our mind starts telling us that things are going to get tough, so we hold onto our money and slow down on paying our bills. This then makes it harder for our suppliers, so they start to hold onto their funds, and they slow down on paying their monthly bills, which then go from 30 days to 60 days and even 90 days. Eventually the supply and flow of money slowly dwindles and grinds to a halt.

Due to the flow of money slowing, businesses will consequently cut advertising and promotions and even cut back on sales staff. The very staff that help bring the business in. To me it has always seemed a backwards way to go about it. However, we are very lucky here in the Mahurangi area. Even over the winter we will have tourists and tourist buses stopping in Warkworth. The really positive thing about the tourist buses is that they are now stopping in our town for an hour, more than the 10-minute comfort stop they have had in the past.

This means that during the hour the tourists are here, our retail stores and cafés have that extra opportunity to capture the tourist dollar. I must admit I love hearing different accents and seeing different people wandering about town. It adds real interest and vibrancy to the streets.

We are also extremely fortunate to be in an area of real growth. For businesses involved in the construction industry there are massive opportunities here for years to come. And the good news is there is no sign that the construction and development of new areas are going to ease up. Areas that were meant to be live-zoned in a decade are now being considered for live-zones within the next couple of years!

As a species it is often the case that we find it easier to hold onto the negative rather than the positive. I think for us living here in paradise it’s time we went against the trend and focused on how lucky we are instead. Plan for a prosperous future. Let’s turn down that gloomy invitation and continue to shop, support and love local!

Industrial sector confidence steady

Ongoing tenant demand for industrial property has kept vacancy rates at historically low levels in Auckland, despite higher interest rates, a cooling economy and increased development activity. Auckland’s industrial vacancy rate was recorded at 1.9% by Colliers Research in its latest February 2023 survey, virtually unchanged from the August 2022 figure of 1.8%. Vacancy across the region’s major industrial precincts has been below 2.5% since February 2015. Meanwhile, industrial property investors have become more cautious about the market in recent months due to rapidly rising interest rates and forecasts of an economic recession. As a result, sales volumes have declined from the elevated levels seen in 2020 and 2021.