Confidence Survey - Pessimism Eases!

Dear Weekly Overview reader.

Attached you will find the results of our monthly survey of yourselves. There was a tremendous response producing lots of comments about conditions in a wide range of industries, including two pages on the real estate market. The overall sentiment indicator for the economy remains poor at a net 55% pessimistic. But in spite of the constant stream of negative news the past month this is better than 63% last month. Interesting - and welcome.

With regard to some specific sectors we note the following.

Construction

Flat to easing. “Infrastructure spending holding, but residential spending decreasing”

Finance

Significant tightening of standards, demand also easing. Mortgage broking going rapidly backwards. “A bit of a disaster area”

ICT

More signs of weakness than in any other survey the past three years, but still well underpinned. “Customers are delaying making investment decisions at present"

Residential property

Two pages of quite detailed comments add great flesh to the numbers released on Friday by Barfoot and Thompson. Buyers are hardly anywhere to seen, prices are falling and only vendors willing to cut asking prices quickly get sales in a reasonable time. Landlords are easily getting rent increases, only a few bargain hunters have appeared as yet, and property developers are pulling back as fast as they can to try and minimise losses. “As in 1999-2001, I think we will loose 30% of the salespeople/offices in the area.”

Retail

Overwhelmingly bad. “People have stopped spending money” “High fuel cost affecting convenience sales.”

Tourism

Mainly negative comments. “Tourism is down and all the costs are up”

See... Results_Apr5.pdf

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