Demographic Change In New Zealand: Implications For The Property Industry
New Zealand's population and demographic changes and its impact of property will be the subject of one of the keynote
speaker sessions at the up coming New Zealand Property Institute's conference being held at the Hyatt Hotel, Auckland,
on Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th July 2003.
New Zealand Property Institute CEO, Conor English said today, "Property is all about people, so we need to understand
the make up of our people in order to understand property. It has been said that demographics drives two thirds of
whatever happens in an economy, so we all need to know more."
Speaking at the conference will be leading New Zealand demographers, Janet Sceats and Professor Ian Pool, of Portal
Consulting and the Population Studies Centre, University of Waikato. They are involved in project, programme & policy development and review, strategic planning and policy formulation, strategic design and analysis, assessment of
population needs, technical advice and lecturing. They bring a unique blend of internationally demonstrated technical
excellence, a population focus, and a realistic understanding of both the business and public sector environments.
"It took only 20 years for NZ to grow from 3 million to 4 million people. This has had a major impact on the property
market. Over the next 20 years demographic growth is likely to be slower. Thus changes in population composition and
distribution are going to be more important than growth in population size in driving demand in sectors such as the
property industry," Mr English said.
"Demand for property is influenced by a number of demographic factors: shifts in age structures; fertility patterns and
trends and thus household formation; and shifts in tenure. The related high profile issues of migration and the
diversification of the New Zealand population will be looked at, and put alongside the far lower profile, but perhaps
more significant, issue of the dichotomisation of New Zealand into "have" and "have-not" regions and into "big three"
(Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch) and the rest. A changing geographical distribution is seeing a transformation in
the industrial sectors of the labour force, which has implications for commercial property. There have been significant
changes in all these demographic areas
"This will be another excellent conference session which will give highly relevant insights into the impact population
trends have on property trends. We expect that serious property people will not want to miss it," Mr English concluded.