Last month I was incredibly privileged to travel to Europe with the family. The last time I was there, twenty-eight years ago, I was eighteen years old and travelling with friends on a gap year. At that time, the only thing I proudly returned home with was a Heineken t shirt. This time was a very different experience. I was travelling as a Dad, husband and pack horse. The tourism had changed...
Most of us will be familiar with the cinematic line: “We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz” from the classic film, The Wizard of Oz. For those of you a touch younger than I, the premise of the movie is that the Wizard of Oz is the only being with the power to send Dorothy home. Much to our disappointment when we finally meet the wizard it turns out he was just a grumpy old man...
Just as the rise and rise of the motor vehicles sent shivers down the spine of the local blacksmith, there’s a shiver now down our modern workforce. Why? Because they’re wondering how their desk jobs will stand up against the benefits and efficiencies of Artificial Intelligence, or AI. This is a hot topic within the real estate industry, and there is more than one principal currently pondering just...
The New Zealand property market is always a popular topic of conversation. The market is booming! The market is in free fall. How will interest rate cuts affect the market? We’ve all heard it before. What we sometimes forget is that ‘the market’ is made up of a group of people. Yes, that’s right, it’s a collection of real human beings! And those human beings have decided that it is time to...
Is: ‘the land of the long grey cloud’ a more fitting name for our country, as we find ourselves in a recession once again? While the word ‘recession’ carries plenty of negativity, there are always opportunities in a downturn. So, this month we look at how to find the positive in times of recession. Just Get It Over With As a child I spent plenty of time at the dental clinic. Nothing...
What’s it really like to be a real estate agent? Despite writing this blog monthly for the last thirteen years it always takes me by surprise to receive a reminder in CAPS urging me to get my draft through ASAP. While pondering this month’s topic I passed Wellington City station and watched as CBD based workers headed home for the day. It was in that moment I had a brief flirtation with the...
During the slow news period over Christmas and New year, New Zealand’s weather stories take centre stage. The daily news often features what’s hot, what’s not and what regions are recording record breaking temperatures. As we headed off on our annual holiday we did so with trepidation because the long-range forecast was looking less than tropical. But the good news is our reality was much...
A great salesperson is someone who can convince you to buy something you don’t actually want. Back in the 1980’s the greatest of all door-to-door salesperson was the Kirby vacuum cleaner salesperson. These American trained salespeople would walk the streets looking for an opportunity to demonstrate these ‘vacuums of the future’. As a child, I was once witness to such a pitch. I vividly remember...
One of the few benefits of getting older is that you start to notice cycles, which doesn’t mean you can predict the future it just means that you are more aware of what stage of the cycle you are in. In this current cycle (and depending on what side of the ledger you are on) buyers are still trying to pick the bottom, and vendors are looking for the rebound. The problem with picking the...
A few years back, due to some financial pressures, we had to say goodbye to Sky TV. It was about then that my love of rugby started to wane. The game has struggled to maintain its dominance in the New Zealand psyche, so I was surprised to hear that the opening game of the 2023 Rugby World Cup was free to air. Having not seen a game in years, I quickly rediscovered my passion for...