Waikato Business News April/May 2023

WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS, APRIL/MAY 2023 27
Waikato housing market insights
with Kiwibank chief economist
Waikato house prices are expected to
stabilise over the next year or two, and
home loan rates will start falling by the
end of 2023, according to Kiwibank
economist Jarrod Kerr.
Speaking at a recent
event hosted by Waikato
Real Estate, Kerr
explained that global inflation
had peaked and was declining,
which would help bring New
Zealand’s inflation under
control. He says around half
of the inflation experienced in
New Zealand was coming from
offshore, so it was essential to
examine what was happening
globally.
He added that domestic
inflation was mainly driven
by the cost of building houses,
which had gone up by 20-30%
in recent years.
The Waikato housing
market is of great interest to
Waikato Real Estate, a local
and family-owned Property
Management company led by
Michelle Pearson.
“We are managing a portfolio
of over 1,200 properties in
the greater Hamilton area, so
working alongside our property
owners to understand
Kiwibank economist
Jarrod Kerr
market conditions is key
to their success and ours,”
Michelle says.
During the discussion, Kerr
also highlighted that there was
a good chance New Zealand
had already entered a technical
recession. He pointed
out that the fourth quarter of
2022 had seen a contraction of
0.6%, which could lead to two
quarterly contractions, which
technically means a recession.
He warned that the worst of
the recession could still be yet
to come, as the Reserve Bank
of New Zealand and Treasury
were forecasting a recession to
begin in the middle of 2023.
Kerr also spoke about the
outlook for builders and developers,
who were facing high
borrowing and material costs
and high wages. He says the
industry was likely to experience
a massive ramp-up in
construction followed by a significant
slowdown, as has been
the trend in New Zealand in
the past. However, he added
the Hawkes Bay rebuild, which
was expected to begin soon,
could slow down the process.
Increased regulation
around owning rental properties
was discussed. Kerr says
the RBNZ’s introduction of
Michelle Pearson
Debt-to-Income rules, slated
for April 2024, are a possible
disruptor and something
property investors should keep
an eye on.
When asked by the audience
what he would do if his
mortgage was coming off a
fixed rate. Jarrod pointed out
that he cannot provide financial
advice but can share what
he does himself. Recently,
he had a loan to re-fix and he
opted to split up the loan and
fixed for a short period only,
feeling that interest rates
will fall towards the end of
the year.
Create a culture of content to build trust
Every business has a
story to tell, knowledge
to share and news about
what is happening within the
company or organisation.
From a florist to a lawyer, to a
hotel, each has their own niche
to discuss with their current
and potential customers.
Putting this knowledge and
news down on ‘paper,’ and
publishing it on your owned
channels (website, e-newsletter,
social media etc.), is a great
way to inform and get potential
customers over the line, especially
if your goods or services
require due diligence on the
customer’s part or are linked
to significant decision-making.
Customers might use a blog
you’ve written or a ‘how-to’
video you’ve created to decide
which product options work
best for them, different ways
to use a product, or learn about
services you offer that they
don’t currently use.
Moreso than ever before,
customers do their due diligence
online and want to first
trust you before they will buy
from you. That’s why your business
must continually develop
and promote content –articles,
tip sheets, how-to videos, slide
shows, podcasts - to showcase
your experience and build that
trust over the long-term.
Developing content – and
‘giving’ it away for free – is also
PR AND
COMMUNICATIONS
BY HEATHER CLAYCOMB
Heather Claycomb is director
of HMC, a Hamilton-based,
award-winning public
relations agency.
an excellent way to build the
profile (and trustworthiness) of
your employees and leadership
team.
Getting started
Your website is the first and
most important place to house
content, so this needs to be up
to scratch. An important starting
point is creating a content
hub where news, articles, videos,
podcast episodes, PDFs
for download, infographics and
more can be regularly uploaded
to one singular place (usually a
tab on your main menu).
Your goal is going to be
to drive people back to that
content over and over again
through all your company’s
communications channels.
And when the content is good,
each time your audience visits,
you’ll put a deposit in the trust
bank.
Keeping it going
You really need to think about
how you can create a culture of
content in your business. Try to
make best practice communication
one of your key business
values and start sharing your
news, knowledge and expertise
with your audiences.
Making content creation
part of your organisational
culture will make it easier to
commit to regularly populating
your content hub and sharing
that content in different ways
through each channel under
your control.
Here are three ways to stay
on track and committed to
ongoing content creation:
Reminders: You could
set a reminder each month
to make sure you set aside
an hour to put something
together.
Involve others: Perhaps
there is a reliable staff member
who could be put in
charge of the task of seeking
out content ideas. We’d definitely
encourage getting as
many of the team involved
as possible; this means more
ideas and it can be a morale
boost to reflect on team
successes and demonstrate
their knowledge.
Plan: Another way to keep
yourself committed is by
laying out a quarterly calendar,
with key topics for
each month and team members
assigned to each action.
Include goals and measurables
in your plan so you can
stay on track.
If you need some ideas of
what content to develop or need
a starting point for your blog or
articles, try ChatGPT for some
thought-starters.
Tools that will help
We encourage our clients to
move beyond the written word,
and there are a range of tools
that can help you create something
visual without the help of
a graphic designer. Canva.com
is a great place to start for this,
where you can presentations,
slide shows, charts, infographics,
social media imagery and
more.
Others to try include: Lemonly.com
for infographics and
CapCut.com video maker. And
give an AI image generator a try,
for instance OpenAI’s Dall-E.
There are a range of tools
out there to help make the content
creation job easier.
Our team
DESIGNER
Kelly Gillespie
kelly@dpmedia.co.nz
DESIGNER
Warren Gilberston
design@dpmedia.co.nz
EDITORIAL
Janine Jackson
editor@dpmedia.co.nz
ADVERTISING
MANAGER
Joanne Poole
Ph: (07) 838 1333
Mob: (021) 507 991
joanne@dpmedia.co.nz
PUBLISHER
Deidre Morris
Ph: (07) 838 1333
Mob: 027 228 8442
deidre@dpmedia.co.nz
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