Demographic Change In New Zealand

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.

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