Michael Anistasidis discusses mortgage finance, especially for First Home Buyers.
Michael clearly and in straightforward language describes the important work of property finance for his clients, particularly First Home buyers.
Michael’s understanding of this country’s property market and the current housing landscape is underpinned by a commitment to service people’s need for a home.
Broad brush discussion on Aotearoa New Zealand’s current housing issues, the cycles of the market, and the kinds of questions we need to ask of the collective challenges ahead of us.
contact Michael at https://www.michaelmortgageman.co.nz/’
Michael clearly and in straightforward language describes the important work of property finance for his clients, particularly First Home buyers.
Michael’s understanding of this country’s property market and the current housing landscape is underpinned by a commitment to service people’s need for a home.
Broad brush discussion on Aotearoa New Zealand’s current housing issues, the cycles of the market, and the kinds of questions we need to ask of the collective challenges ahead of us.
contact Michael at https://www.michaelmortgageman.co.nz/’
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, Michael. Hello, niceto meet you, Nice to see you.
Nice to see you after this time. Hi, it's Rosalind Derby here
(00:23):
on Local Architecture now for May andwe have Michael and artists and the artists
wonderful name who is he is himself? But you also represent buzzing Off mortgages
and insurance. Is that correct?Yes, I'm a mortgage advisor with Buzzing
Off Mortgages and we try and makemortgages easy for people. Yeah, yeah,
(00:47):
I mean, and you're based inLower Hut right, Our officers in
Colbernie in Wellington, but we serveus and we have clients all over Wellington
and all over New Zealand. Actuallyright, And I'm I'm obviously the listeners
of myself. You know, it'sa youth of a mistake. We don't
know much about. That's why youknow you're you're involved in people's home buying
(01:14):
experience. But was Paula Clark whofirst suggested that you would be a great
voice in this area. Paula wespoke to earlier in the year about the
business of architecture and she she yourname came up. She's she's involved a
lot in New builds and as faras an architectural design capacity, yes,
it was great to have that connection. Yes. And she's also designed the
(01:38):
deck at my place and done otherdesign architecture work for a lot of clients
that I've passed to her, andshe's put on to me to get finance
once they're ready to progress with theirideas. Okay, Okay, that's how
that works. So am I ofthe understanding you your area is first home
(02:02):
buyers as a majority? Or amI wrong? No, you're right.
The majority of my business is predominantlyfirst home buyers. Then it used to
be investors until the previous government madeand the Reserve Bank made the rules too
hard and we don't get many investorsbuying as much property as we used to
(02:24):
do. So after first time buyers, the next predominant market is people doing
what we call pop ups, sothey're topping up their own home loan existing
home loans with a new amount todo their their renovations or structural renovations,
(02:46):
adding bedrooms on suites, things likethat, and that's that's where where we
do a lot of a lot ofwork. Well that's quite rewarding, isn't
it, Because not because people havegot their home, they're able to use
their home as a top up abilityto then develop the home for their for
their changing life. They're developing lifestylesand that's that's really where it's at,
(03:08):
isn't it for people's real lives.And I tend to forget because once I
do the loan, I sort of, you know, I help them through
that process where they get they sendme in voices, I send them to
the bank to pay, and thenonce the loan's drawn, you know,
we sort of depart, yeah,until we need to help them again with
(03:31):
either refixing their loan or something.But to your point, very rewarding,
and I forget how rewarding it is. And just the other day some client
sent me a photo saying, thisis how you helped us change our life.
Look at our transformed house with theextra bedroom, the extra on suite,
the extra living area. They werefortunate enough that they had the space
(03:54):
to do it. And the ladysaid to me, this is now our
dream home. That was our foreverhome anyway is now our dream home.
And thank you for making it happenso very very rewarding. Well, I
mean, for people's experience to createspace within their insisting home and to change
space as a architectural It's pretty profoundlife stuff. And I mean it all
(04:18):
comes down to money and the anxietyor the capacity to be able to get
the budget right. And therefore Iguess the role you to play is part
of that. I mean to waffleon a bit, it just brings back
to mind very really. I grewup in Stokes Valley. Mum and dad
built a tiny little house on thehill and Stokes Valley and they lived there
(04:39):
till they retired. And these milestoneswhere they got some money to add on
another room or add on to theliving room, or add on to the
boy's bedroom and create another bedroom.And then they did this and then they
did that, and it was likethroughout the whole life. Yeah, and
it was and great great section sizesin Stokes Valley is a very place is
(05:00):
especially in the Wellington region, whereyou've got the room now to do those
extensions. So that's why I thinkit's important that if people are thinking a
lot of people know what they wantand they think the answer is to go
and buy, to go and buya new home or find a house that
has what they want. But sometimesthe answer is right where they are in
(05:23):
their current home, and by speakingto someone like Paula the architect, you
know you don't you may not needto sell your house and find a new
one. The answer might be doingit within there, right you would,
within their current property. And Ithink that's that's why it's so important that
(05:43):
someone speaks to an expert first,so we can help point them in the
right direction. And that's one ofthe first things I say is, hey,
have you have you spoken to someone? Do you really know what your
requirements are and what it is youwant to do, Because once we know
that answer, then I can asksome other questions to see, right,
(06:04):
will you qualify for the money?And then it all flows from there.
Well, that was going to bemy question, you've just answered it.
So you are involved in asking thosequestions in terms of your in terms of
your advisory role one, so rightup the front. So if someone rings
me, the first thing they wantto know is, let's assume they've already
(06:25):
decided they want to do something anextension or renovation to their current house.
The first thing they want to know, and I want to know, is
do they have enough income to coverthe existing lending that they may have if
they have any, and then dothey have enough income to cover the new
(06:45):
lending. And that's where we usuallybecause it's so early on in the piece,
they don't necessarily know how much thingsare going to cost, and that
can be eye watering, So wetry and go with some ballpark figures or
I may be able to give themwhat their maximum could be, and then
(07:06):
it's off. They go to speakto the likes of Paula to see,
right, can it be done?And then they progress down that road and
then the next thing they have todo is see if they can get some
sort of cost or quotes from atrusted tradesman or professional, so that then
(07:28):
we can see if my original conversationwith them and what they're now been hit
with is reality or not. ButI mean, obviously they wouldn't want to
go down the road of going throughworking drawings with an architecture office if they
think that they can't actually finance thejob. I would imagine, and that's
why the discussion with me at thebeginning is so important. So I can
(07:50):
say, actually, based on yournumbers and based on I don't know,
I'm pretty confident I can get youanother two hundred thousand. You know,
without doing the application, I'm prettyconfident I could get you the two hundred
thousand. We can either do anapplication to see if the bank will approve
you for two hundred thousand, orif we're all confident that that's doable,
(08:15):
now go and speak to someone tosee can the nature of the work you
want done be done for that pricerange. So it's a bit of chicken
and egg with what we do first. But the banks, the banks prefer
to see me submitting an application wherethe client has already gone and done consented
(08:39):
drawings, a consent from the council, and there's at least a draft fixed
price contract. Okay, So whenthe bank sees that, they know that
this is a serious client, they'vegone and put skin in the game.
They've invested time and money to getit to a stage where the bank can
now make a decision. If Idon't provide that to the bank, the
(09:03):
bank will then say, hey,here's a conditional approval that we're going to
give two hundred or one hundred andfifty thousand to Rosalind, but we now
need to see the consented plans,the consent from the council a fixed price
contract, and you've got sixty orninety days to do it because then this
(09:26):
approval expires. And as we know, the way things tend to work in
this country is it can't get muchdone in sixty or ninety days. I
know in Loahart there's a lot ofpeople buying properties. Maybe you're saying not
so much the investors now, butfor a while in the last few years,
it was buying properties and putting thein accordance with the medium density housing
(09:48):
roles, putting these three times threetimes three on these sections. Is that
slowing down? And were you involvedin that? That's obviously investor you're not
involved in that. No, Ihaven't been, and I haven't seen any
for some time. To be fair, ever, I suppose was it the
JIB crisis? What was the rightword? When? When? When?
(10:09):
Was it all in the media aboutthe cost of jib? Yeah, the
cost of jib Yeah, Yeah,that was that was sort of late two
thousand and late twenty twenty. Really, so ever since then things have been
slowing down. Okay, I thoughtit was Lower Heart was the absolute gold
place for all of this capitalizing onthe medium density housing thing, which didn't
(10:31):
actually come in until twenty twenty Septembertwenty twenty. I think a lot of
plans have been consented or a lotof properties were brought and some of the
big developers, yes, they've done, they've already done their developments. But
since then, it's that's interesting.The costs are too high for the building,
(10:56):
the labor has been hard to get, and the interest rates are now
too high where it's for a lotof these developers it's become unaffordable to do
these to do these continue with someof these developments, okay, And of
course the buyers are no longer therelike they were back early in the early
(11:20):
two thousands, two thousand and one, where where the property market was just
crazy. And that's that's what's happenedin a nutshell. Okay, Okay,
So how do you see I mean, you're right, you're right in the
middle of what we call this housingcrisis, housing affordability. You're the person
in that. So how do yousee things as they are at the moment,
(11:43):
you know, philosophically or I mean, obviously you're still in the market
of providing people with home loans brokenhome loans, but you've got to look
at the environment we're in right now. So we've just finished ANZAC weekend school
holiday, we're coming into winter.That's usually the slow down in the property
(12:07):
market, so it's the quiet timeof year for us. But we've also
got another dynamic, especially in Wellington. Well I don't think it's as evident
in the rest of the country isthe impact the government cuts are having on
the public service at the moment.With the insecurity around jobs and job losses
(12:30):
and redundancies, people are very reluctantright now to do any sort of major
renovation or purchasing a property unless theyhave to because there's a lot of uncertainty
around their employment. And the lastthing you want to be doing is committing
yourself to a big project or abig lifestyle change when you're not sure if
(12:54):
you're going to have a job ina few months time. So that's making
it very difficult for a lot ofa lot of Wellingtonians at the moment.
And when there's uncertainty in the market, things just plateau or stop and look,
if you want to find an excusenot to buy right now or not
(13:16):
to do any work, there's alot of excuses. Interest rates are high
labor costs are high, materials arehigh. Council consents take a long time.
When you're worried about it. There'syou can find many excuses. But
those that are motivated to get onand do something, well, they'll just
get on and buy their first home, or buy their investment property, or
(13:37):
do their renovations and they just knowthat, hey, yes things may be
tough right now, but the sunalways rises at some stage, so they
just get on with it. There'salways those that just do. But it's
it's tough times. It is toughtimes. I heard the Reserve Bank say
the other day and their financial stabilityreport. The good news is that about
(14:01):
ninety percent of mortgage holders now havean interest rate with a five percent or
higher rate. So that means themajority of mortgage holders we've already have gone
through that pain. I've been onthose low rates to now high rate,
and we haven't seen the message themass mortgage sales that some people were expecting
(14:24):
all this bubble to burst so peoplecan come in and buy houses on the
cheap and then do them up andflip them on or hold on. It
just hasn't happened. I found thatnew Zealanders will do whatever it takes to
hold on to their home. Yeahyeah, yeah, So there was always
(14:46):
a constructor's always home buying world outthere. People are still living their lives,
buying their home, renovating their home, extending their families. It's always
going, it's part of your life. Life happens, people die, people
are born, people get married,people break up, and the one thing
(15:07):
they all have in common is theyneed a roof over their heads. And
it's either provided by the landlord andthe rental market, the government in some
cases and in most cases people wantto own their own home. It's still
the key we dream home. Yeah. So we hear a bit about rent
(15:31):
to own as developed as a developerproposal, but then again that's going to
be influenced by the huge margins,I mean, the narrow margins for a
developer in terms of the cost ofthe borrowing, the interest rate on the
money that they borrow to start thesethings up. And then they've got to
actually they don't get cash immediately fromthe sale. They've got to do a
rent to own. So what isthe what is the issue about that in
(15:54):
the future as a possibility for peopleto get on the letter, and the
banks are slowly moving towards having productsfor those to cater and those arrangements.
So that's that's definitely happening at themoment. The most important thing I say
to people if they're looking to dosomething like that as you've got to get
(16:18):
legal advice. You've got to getadvice to see what exactly what are you
getting yourself into. And by that, I mean what are the what are
the how much of the property willyou own? How much will you own
over time? How do you buythe developer out eventually or the landlord or
(16:41):
whoever the owner is with the jointventure. There's a lot of there's a
lot of questions that I don't thinkpeople really understand. So my first point
are called are saying right, Itcan be done. There are products out
there, but you've got to havespoken to a lawyer to really understand what
you're doing, because if something goeswrong or you need to sell, or
(17:04):
there's difficulty with the mortgages, thingscan become problematic. I mean, I
guess both government and banks don't knowvery much about it either, including it's
very early on. It's very earlyon. I mean we think of it
(17:25):
as happening in Europe people rent forthe rest of their lives or whatever.
Yes, yes, but not hereso much because I just say New Zealand
is a country of you know,have your own home. The goal is
for most people, and I thinkI think it's about a third or I
think roughly about two thirds of us. I think I can't remember what the
status own our own home. Roughlya third rent. So yeah, it's
(17:48):
an emerging area. Put it thatway, Roslin, an emerging area.
Okay, we'll see what happens infive to ten years. Yes, I
mean it might be. Part ofemerging is that we have a so called
crisis. I don't know if youwould call it that. You're in the
world all the time, so itmay not be at crisis to you.
It looks good in the political statement. Look, I think I think the
problem is we don't have enough housingto accommodate everyone. Is that true?
(18:15):
That's the problem, and we seeit with the Okay, there's there's record
numbers of Kiwi's leaving, but there'salso equally a record number of of migrants
coming to the country, and there'sjust not enough housing to house the mord
And I think that's that's why we'veseen a supply and demand and balance over
(18:37):
the last few years. And that'swhy property price has just soared because there
was just too much demand for notenough stock. And that's why they've had
to come up with this these creativeideas with these housing density projects and loosening
the rules and things like that.And and like you said, Lower Huts
been air marked. I think JohnsonVall was another hub that they had said
(19:02):
as well. But in my timerecent times of driving through Lower Hut and
Johnsonville, I haven't seen massive threestory buildings or developments going up everywhere.
Okay, well not yet anyway.Right. It's that it's just until someone
(19:23):
addresses that the the land zoning makingit easy for developers to get the land
to get the money because given developersto getting the money to do their work
is hard, and interest rates havebeen so high. Like I said before,
it just seems a little bit uneconomicat the moment. The numbers just
don't stack up for people to gointo those into those ventures. Yes,
(19:48):
I was talking about it last weekwith another architect, and it sounds like
the margins are so slim, youknow, it seems like Oh, you
know, we can develop. We'vegot this opportunity to build like six dwellings
on one side that normally was onlyzone for one. It sounds like a
bit of a gold rush. Butin reality, with the inflation being what
it is, the money they haveto borrow in the process of the development
(20:10):
is just eye watering. As yousaid, yeah, yeah, it's too
much risk for and and I meanespecially like I said now in Wellington,
the the demand has dropped off.Yeah, that's interesting. So that so
that with this redundancy program that we'reseeing in recent weeks, that's going to
(20:30):
have a real impact on the onthe market. But you are saying,
there's always people who are going tobuy a house, do it, up
sell it by another one. Lifewill still happen. People are cautious at
the moment. That's that's what itis. People are cautious and they're just
not rushing into things like like theywere after COVID, where you know it's
(20:56):
holistic. Yeah, Australians willing toiletpaper? Was that? What that was?
That what they were We were laughingat them for there was no toilet
paper there. The Americans were buyingguns and we were buying houses that Oh
yeah, we were buying houses.It was crazy, and then there was
no jib left. Yes, that'sright, you know, it just it
was. It was obscene those days. And that's why the Reserve Bankers and
(21:22):
the previous goverment have been putting allthese rules in place. You know,
they removed the interest deductibility for investors, they made the lvrs, the loan
to value ratios, they brought thoseback, and the Reserve Banker is now
doing proposals on bringing in debt toincome ratios, meaning you won't be able
to you'll be able to borrow acertain amount depending on your income, so
(21:51):
it might be you might only beable to borrow six times your income.
All these things that have been athigh interest rates. Of course, yes,
these things have been had come into keep prices from running away like
they were for us after covid Y, and they've made things come to and
(22:11):
holt and just that you know,just just stay flat. Well they did,
they intended to do that, andapparently it's working. You know what
was actually working on It's worked.Okay, so we're getting back to a
different baseline. Yes, And asas things as those restrictions lift or change
(22:32):
or relax. I think the ReserveBank just wants to slowly open the flood
gates slowly and take the foot offthe brake to allow more and more people
and into the property buying business.From my perspective, the demand has not
gone. The phone still rings,people still want to buy their house.
We they either don't meet the criteriaor I can't make the numbers work.
(22:57):
Okay, So that's the demand isthere. We just can't help everyone,
okay. Okay. So the restrictionsare there. You're working with those restrictions,
those legist of restrictions, and that'simpacting on whether people can move forward
with their purchase ideas. Yeah,okay, So how does that affect Obviously
(23:18):
it's the next question, how doesthat affect your business? You're still seeing
you and the property market, yousee it through all different changes and times.
Yes, I think I think thelook some of the some of the
rules and regulations. Sometimes I justI just question, you know, I
do have my thoughts that that it'snot helping people or the country move ahead
(23:45):
in the right way. You know. I sometimes think, you know,
if I look at the government,what they did with that whole triple c
if A they made it. Thoseare the days where the banks were going
through the bank statements with the finetooth comb. How much have they spent
on KFC, how much have theyspent on cough for uber eats? There
was ridiculous the banks. The banksare in the business to make money and
(24:08):
they don't want to lend money outto risky people. And our banks in
New Zealand have never faced well,not that I can remember. I can't
remember in the last ten, fifteen, twenty years any of our banks having
major issues. You know, we'renot We're not. We're not Latin America
(24:32):
or parts of North Asia, youknow where there's problems with the banking system.
New Zealand has a very robust bankingsystem. So I think to regulate
and hit the banks is the easy. It's just easy. I think for
politicians where they should have put theireffort is in the payday lenders, you
know people, the payday lenders you'llfine your immediate finance, the loan sharks.
(25:02):
The amount of people I see thathave got pain ridiculously high interest rates
on car loans or buy now paidlater type things and credit cards and loans
that I haven't even heard of.That's I think where that energy should have
been channeled into. But I thinkthat's in the too hard basket. So
(25:26):
the other the rest of the industrygot hit. Yeah, it's definitely had
an impact, and I think thingswill slowly change, but it's not all
going to happen at once, becauseif it does, the interest rates drop,
their house prices will will go upagain because you'll just let all the
(25:48):
demand back in. Yeah, sothey're holding that demand back with these interest
rate the ICA whatever it is that'skeep and all their other restrictions. I
mean, personally, being on thekey saver, when everyone was moaning about
the interest rates going up from twoto three percent to seven percent, I
(26:11):
thought, well, you know,when you're on two percent, your KIV
saver hardly owns any money at all. And when I bought money pattern and
those with the term deposit, hardlyany money you're earning, and it goes
up and you're earning more money onyour term deposits. But also I mean,
at one point, I think myKIV saver went down in a month
because it was just so low inthe interest rates. But when I bought
(26:32):
my place, you know, thefirst interest rate, the first interest rate
was eleven percent, and the secondmortgage was fourteen percent. That was what
I was used to way back when, So you know, I couldn't understand
all this, you know, bizarrenessabout oh the interest rates going up,
you know, I mean, youhave to have them at a certain rate.
And look, and the bank stresstests work. So at the moment
when I'm doing a mortgage for someone, the bank's stress testing the mortgage at
(26:56):
around nine percent. Yes, soeven though the rates around six and a
half seven percent, the seven anda half, the three's testing that at
nine percent. Now, I don'tthink we're going to get a nine percent
interest rate. In fact, interestrates are meant to stay flat for a
while at these high rates before theygo down. So you know, the
(27:18):
bank's already doing those checks anyway,and you're right nowhere near fourteen percent for
homeowners anyway. Yeah, yeah,and that was when it was a real
boom time as well, of course. Yeah. Yeah, so public private,
I mean, Kaying or are doinga huge amount of building, as
(27:41):
you know, that's the state sideof providing housing. It seems, I
mean, to us the layperson,there seems to be so much King or
a housing bursting out everywhere, butthat's not your area. You wouldn't have
anything to do with that. Butthat's the supplying of housing, isn't it.
Yes, Yeah, but developing weneed we need more supply, and
(28:07):
especially for those at the lower socioeconomic end, because there's a lot of
people that I cannot help. Yeah, and they need they need. There
needs to be a solution for thosepeople, and that's where you need the
government intervention. Okay, but thereseems to be a lot of it going
on. I mean, it's likea whole new splurge on government housing.
That's that's it. Is it corrector is it still limited? I don't
(28:30):
know. And the prices don't seemlow to me. I look at the
one bedroom apartments and they're up therein the eight hundred thousand and these nice
news. Yeah, I don't understandthat. I don't play in that space.
I couldn't answer that's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Who knows what the future is.I mean, I guess it will just
be the same as it's always been. You know, there will always be
(28:52):
people who are buying their homes,renovating their homes. Look at renovating to
sell. It's not at the momentbecause of the environ we're in with the
high living, high cost of living, high interest rates. But things will,
you know, inflation will get undercontrol. Things will stabilize at some
stage and the price cycle market willwill go through its next cycle of house
(29:19):
prices slowly, you know, incrementallygoing up, and then at some stage
there'll be there will be another boom, you know, and then and then
we'll just go through the same phaseagain. It will just go draw.
Things will happen, money will gettight, the conditions will change. It's
all cyclical. We just we justlive in a time where we're just not
(29:44):
patient enough. We just want thingsto always be in the good times and
you know, which is human nature, you know, and to get over
the bad times as quick as possible. And that's why every time you hear
the media when the Reserve Bank,when is it going to be cut?
When is it going to be cut? Well, we're not there yet.
We're doing the hard work now,so the day will come, but we're
(30:07):
not there yet. Do you mean, when's the information going to the inflation
going to be cut? Yes?Yeah, so yeah, it'll happen.
Things will come back to stability ahouse. Prices are store ridiculously high though,
let's face it, I mean,are are they how it is?
For well, I look not ashigh as they were, that's for sure.
And that's actually it's a buyer's marketat the moment because there's so many
(30:30):
properties for sale but not enough buyers. Okay, the buyers do have the
rich picking, but to become abuyer, you've got to get the money,
and the money is getting hard toget. And then plus the uncertainty
the few buyers that are out therethey can pick what they want, so
it's hard for people to sell atthe moment. Yeah, and that's what's
(30:52):
keeping the prices suppressed at the moment. Okay, So that's the cycle wherein
yeah, yeah, yeah. Butthis public private thing, I guess that's
just a sort of an idea.It's you know, like give men,
councils, maybe combining with developers todeliver housing. That's not your area,
(31:15):
of course, but but it's anarea that that someone's going to have to
look at and either with developers orwith landlords. And I know landlords get
a bit of a bad rap,but we need these people in the market
to provide housing. Yes, wedo so provide that service, and you
(31:37):
know, it's it's an here.I think it's it's like a lot of
things at the moment, things aredone in piece meal. There's not a
holistic view of how are we goingto you know, I mean we were
having we've got don't know if we'vestill got them. For heaven's sakes,
we've got water restrictions in Wellington,you know we had in summer. You
(32:00):
know, how can you build morewhen there's not enough water for the existing
people a country that's plentiful of rainand water. So to me, it
seems like we need someone I don'tknow who, but we need that holistic
view of where are we going toput developments and is it going to have
(32:21):
the infrastructure that we need in twentytwenty four to accommodate those things. And
I don't know the answer to that, but I'm worried that that thinking is
not being done because my feeling,well within my world, is that there
will slowdown. There's more room forsome of this holistic thinking to start to
(32:45):
have time, to have time forthe think tanks, you know, time
for thinking of there is more alternative. We're starting to look at community and
urban design. You don't just knockup a few buildings. You actually consider
about the community environmental context. Andthere hasn't been the time or that expertise
to be involved in development. Butyou know, maybe the slowdown you're getting
(33:07):
chances for these conversations and this potentialfor broader design approach to to emerge.
I hope so, and I hopeyou're right. I think that I think
that I think the difficulty is weseem to work in a three year cycle
by the political with the central governmentor local government, so there's not that
(33:30):
continuity to to think of these plansand then see them through in the long
term, because these things don't happenovernight and they need that long term planning
investment and the infrastructure to support,you know, the sewage, the water,
the electricity. You know, arewe having solar More and more people
(33:53):
are having electric cars. Where thewhat are the buses? You know?
I know people want to have cycleways and things like that, but people
still have cars. When he parking, we just can't have these big places
with no places for people to parka car. The transport hubs, the
doctors, the nurses, the schools, there's a lot of things, and
(34:17):
you know, and sometimes I feellike the country's broke. Everyone wants money,
but there's no money to go around. So yeah, it seems like
people say, yes, it's greatto think and plan, but you know,
everything seems to get done on thesmell of an oily rag. And
that's what lets us down. Okay, there's a few. I was just
(34:37):
talking to Wayne Bishop the live Inyou know, I don't know if you
know he did Somerset are not somespelled Furst actually in the old Kimberly site
in live In. And I thinkhe has had visions for so long and
he has practiced and development for solong. He's in love in that he
(35:00):
can sort of like understand that thelarge scope of things and plan ahead like
a ten year plan. And youknow, those developers are valuable because they
understand the whole process end to end, yes, and they understand the margins,
and they're structured so that they candevelop what they know is viable.
(35:20):
But they know what they're the finances, and they can and they can manage
that and they're very very valuable tohave around. And they wait and they
can work their offer to work withpublic service. They they're there to advise
and support local council, but theyalso are very highly commercially alousen yeah,
and other sort of people that youjust want to I don't know what's the
(35:43):
word, let loose, just justlet them, just let them get on
with it. Yes, remove thered tape and just let them get on
with it, you know. Andyeah, jeez, it takes takes a
long time. And you're right,they're so valuable to our community. They
are. But the other side ofit is my world is as architecture,
(36:07):
as design, architecture, urban design, and I think in the slowdown,
I'm finding there's a chance for theseideas from my perspective to be around the
table potentially. I mean when Ifirst approached to local council saying I'd like
to, you know, provide urbandesign advice or architecture, I was told,
(36:29):
oh, no, we've just hada meeting with all our developers.
You know that they bring in theirown architects. You know, we don't
need to talk. We don't needarchitecture in the council or whatever because our
developers. But what the developers dois that they come up with their package
and they tender to the architects,you sort of slot the architectures slotted in
at the end, you know,when they want building consent drawings, that
architectural idea and that thinking holistically isn'thasn't actually had a place. I mean,
(36:54):
the developers know what it's going tocost them, they know how much
of that they want to spend,and then they'll just get the concealer drawings
and the design approved for the resourceconsent, rather than yeah, having all
of these players around the table atthe same time, from the very beginning,
from the very beginning. And that'sand that's like I said, yeah,
(37:15):
it's we just need someone to havethat long term plan in thinking and
the commitment to see it through.Yeah, yeah, yeah, commitment to
see it through. I think Ithink that the will is there. I
mean people have been like you know, sound developers. They understand, like
you know, you're in the housingmarket. You understand what the day to
day realities are to provide for theclient, but you understand the bigger picture
(37:37):
and you see because you're in theindustry as I am, you see what
the problems are and can we askasking the right questions and and it's just
pulling it all together and maybe theslowdown is a chance for some of these
things to I don't know. Well, I think, well, I hope
people do take the opportunity to todo that thinking because it needs to happen.
(38:00):
It needs to happen. Yes,And I was speaking to another developer
builder and he was saying, thereis stuff to do. He didn't say
it quite in such a polite way. He said, there is stuff that
has to be done. He knowsit has to be done, and he
wants to get on with it,but it is hard getting the job,
you know, for him to getthe jobs and through the door when he
knows. He's doing it every day, so he's aware of what you can
(38:22):
do with a piece of land andwhat people will need. But it's it's,
you know, I guess it's thebalance of the political and and then
and then the public. You know, they're given you would know, they're
given options as to have what sortof building, you know, and they're
not necessarily going to ask for differentoptions because they are being told this is
(38:45):
sort of house that's going at themarket, and this is this is what's
available, and this is what youknow you're going to have. So that
until until something really novel is provided, then the general average person won't be
demanding it. Correct agree with everythingyou just said. Yeah, I don't
know if you've been following christ Church. I haven't really, but people are
(39:07):
saying christ Church is starting to takebetter shape than it was when it first
kept off. Yes, yes,no, you're and I've heard that as
well. And I think you know, and I know i've heard because I've
heard rumblings also about the stadium thereas well, and the cost and that.
But I think once that stadium isbuilt, then I think, well,
the rest of the country will trulysee christ Church shine and how they've
(39:34):
come out from the from the earthquake. You know, I think they'll truly
shape that off once they start havingsome world events there. I think it's
like the best kept secret at themoment. Well, it was from a
few years ago, and I thinkpeople are now living in it and are
realizing it that, yeah, thatthis is the this They've done it well,
(39:55):
they've done it well. But againthat's taken a long time. It's
not exactly perfect, but that's that'sa good that's a good example. Well,
I guess they had a clean slateand it was all about Harriet's first
but over time, apparently they're gettingsome really nice connections to the river,
the River Avon, and they're gettingsome nice kind of well they're getting obviously
taken a while, but the architect'squality apparently is appealing to to to residents
(40:21):
and visitors in these housing things.I'm just trying to think. I think
I've had at least I can't tellyou how many clients, but there's been
a number that have moved from Wellingtonto christ Jury to get bigger bang for
their buck. They've sold their housein Wellington and they feel like they're living
in mansions in christ Church. Okay, and they're loving it. They haven't
(40:45):
looked back. Put it that way, put that we're right, Yes,
and with the new the new sortof built format, it's something new and
vibrant and yeah, and they cantest out ideas around urban design concepts to
do with it's working on the looksthat I've heard. Yeah, that sounds
like that'll be there could be agood case study in the in the years
(41:06):
to come. Okay. I'm bothyou know, on the positives and the
lessons learned as well. Okay,that's interesting. I mean, like you.
I'm always positive, you know.I mean we're talking about land,
people and building. I mean,it's it's a great mix, and it's
always changing. But everybody is skilledin their particular field. And and but
(41:29):
I mean everyone wants to do thebest. Everybody wants to be the best,
the builders, the trades, onthe on the sites. Yeah,
and I'm talking, I'm talking inmost and you know, you're always going
to have your exceptions to that,But most Kiwis just want to do a
good job. Yeah, you know, they want to do a good job,
do a good product that they cansit back and be proud of.
(41:52):
Yeah, and that's that's really simple. And they just want to be left
alone to get on with it.Give us the rule so we don't do
anything crazy, and just let usdo it, you know, let just
let us at it. And Ijust think if we just allowed a little
bit more of our key ingenuity tobe allowed, it will just make the
(42:15):
country much better. I think it'slovely. I'd love to end the program
yet there, but we've got anotherfew another few minutes. But that's that's
really nice. I think that's exactlyright. I mean, that's the nature
of the building industry, the architecturalworld. We are providing the client with
the advice that we want to,you know, connecting them to their site
and meeting them with the builders,and you're involved in the financial side of
(42:38):
it. We're all in it together, you know, from the finance,
the architects, the builders, thecouncil, to even the people in the
showrooms with the final finishers, youknow, for that just you know,
because the are the things that yousee when the video comes out of the
property exactly, the water coming outof the nice tap in the kitchen,
(43:00):
a bathroom, you know, it'sit's and and also those are the bits
where the client is most connected toselection and design, aren't they. That's
where the clients you just say,okay, you can, I'm happy for
you to go for it, andand they go and make all those decisions
and talk. And then that's whenthose suppliers become very much intimate with the
(43:21):
build because they're helping was providing thebest quality for the right price or whatever
budget. Yeah, and I thinkthat's and then you know, just just
going to that visual you know,like you know, I saw you laughing
with the with the with the tap, the water coming out of the tap,
and then that and the lovely nicheand the child shower exactly, and
(43:43):
then all of what we have justspoken about is forgotten. Yeah, I'm
with the planning, the consent,the finances. It's all forgotten. It's
that lovely big shower and the selectionof that perfect tile. Yes, it's
all all. That's the lighting,all the beautiful lighting fixtures, it's all
forgotten. It's all forgotten, thewhole machinery of it all. And that's
(44:07):
our job. Is that our jobto house people so that they feel well
being comfortable. Our job is toget all those mechanics in place. Yes,
and we also know that we haveto communicate with everybody to make that
happen. It's not just me oryou, it's we know that there's a
(44:27):
whole process, and the client it'swhat they're paying for, but they don't
really even know it. And Iwas just going to say, and I
remind my clients, you know,don't worry about these cups or worries now,
because when you're in your house,all of this would have been forgotten
and you'll be sitting in there thinking, wow, how blessed are we?
(44:52):
Absolutely? Absolutely yeah, Now it'sreally good to have to talk that with
you, because I think people,I don't know if they've listened to this
little conversation. They just want thebeautiful home and getting down to deciding what
shrubs to put around the deck andall that sort of thing. But it
(45:13):
is how it works. It look. Nothing nothing like that comes easy.
Everything is hard work. It ishard work. It's a challenge. And
like you say, what you sayto your clients, I say, at
the beginning of the contract, youknow it's going to be challenging. It's
always challenging. But it's also that'swhy we have these good contracts in place.
That's why we have a good setof consent drawings that are fully approved
(45:37):
by counsel. That's why we havea series of inspections. It's challenging,
but also we're here if you wantus, and and we've done it before
and it's part of the process.Look, I've never met anyone who said
to me, we wished we waited. Everyone has said we wished we had
done it sooner. Okay, that'sreally interesting, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(46:02):
yes, but we do. Yeah. I think a good contract is
important, and you would know thatwhen you're talking about when you're you wouldn't
you wouldn't be part of the buildingcontract phase or do you have to see
that when you submit applications the bankneeds to see the fixed price contract.
Okay, so you're part of that, Okay, but I don't review it
(46:23):
the bank. The lawyers review that. The lawyers review that. Yes,
so that's part of that your processas well, through through the banking of
it all. Yeah. Yeah.And then of course, some people love
it so much they love the excitementthat they want to do it all over
again, whereas others, and youknow, it's their home and and it's
(46:43):
it's a slight they want to gotake it slowly. They want to do
it really slowly. I think thatthey're not doing it in a rush,
whereas others get so sort of thewhole project is so challenging, but it's
also exciting that they they want tostart again and renovate another whole place.
Yes, I do that for awhile, until they say, okay,
no, we're done. Yeah,yeah, we're done exactly. Yeah.
(47:06):
Yeah. I think I think.I think it's just say I think this
downturn is a chance for We've beentalking about urban design for a long time,
but it's never really taken realistically.It's urban designers are all marshaled into
council offices to basically just look overthe resource can send applications which are too
(47:27):
tricky for the planners. That's wherethe urban design skill gets like a pick
in the box, a tick inthe box. And that's not valuing the
skill, no, rather than atrue collaborative yeah, and a true before
you know, before the is juststarting at the beginning and understanding that I
think, well, you know thatHuwis have been buying houses for one hundred
(47:52):
and fifty years, but now maybewe can become a little bit more I
don't know, europeanized or whatever.That we're also buying into community. You
know, you're providing the money toget that house out of the ground and
complete it. But once they've gotthat house, you know, there's all
of those sense of neighbors and connectionand the view hills and that it's good
(48:12):
for the environment. That's not thewhole thing. There's a whole lot of
webinars around at the moment about carbonemissions and carbon zero and that's impacting on
more costs to drawings that we haveto Now next year will have to submit
to consent the carbon emission content ofevery aspect of the building. So that's
more fees for the client. Butthat's when urban design is important, because
(48:37):
every stick that you create to buildthat building has to create more than just
a home. Now, it hasto create good for the environment and good
for overall community well being around mentalhealth, social issues, and that's what
people want. People want that aswell. They want to feel like they're
adding to the solutions and not partof the problem. So you know,
(48:58):
it's lucky that we live in anarration where they're aware of these issues the
importance of them, and they wantto be part of that, of that
solution. That's wonderful that you seeit that way. That's you're seeing it.
That's what I'm saying. Yeah,yes, yeah, I am seeing
that. People understand. People understand. They might not like, they may
(49:21):
not like the cost, but theyunderstand the why do that? Well,
We've done so many, so manyyears of it, you know, you
know, I mean, I ifI look at myself, you know how
I was hated when the single plasticbags disappeared. Yes, but I've got
I've got so many of the properones in the car now. I felt
(49:43):
like I was collecting them for awhile. Yeah, but it's like it's
you know, it takes a whileas you become older. You know,
it takes a wilder breakout of yourown habits. And yeah, you know
you understand the importance of why youhave to do these things. Yeah,
and you're you're helping. I knowthat thing about the plastic bag. I
(50:04):
need another plastic bag for my rubbish. Where's my pleasant bag? But yeah,
it seems ridiculous. And we movedon. We're okay, We're okay
with that. Yeah, there's noone marching in the streets wanting to bring
back the plastic bag. You know, we haven't. You know, I'm
not having to have problems. Iwill love you know, it's not keeping
me up at night. You know, I'm not worried about the World's moved
(50:24):
on. People understand that, youunderstand, you this is the world we
live in now. So that's reallygreat. You're you're with you're with the
buyer and the and the homeowner,and you're saying this is how and I'm
talking, you know, I'm feelinglike, you know, we're in the
sort of theoretical expertise kind of worldas it just too much for for the
(50:45):
demand to pick up this idea.But you're saying that, you know,
people are ready, especially with theyounger generations as they come through. You
know they I think they are moreenvironmentally aware than than you and I were
when they were buying their first home. Yeah, so all of these good
(51:06):
things they cost. How can wedo it? How can design? You're
understanding the cost aspect of all ofthis. If we can get good quality
homes but also community and environmental context, how do we do it without increasing
cost? That's the main thing.I mean, then it becomes too precious,
and then we've kind of shot ourselvesin the foot. And I think
(51:27):
if we can value design to meetthe needs of cost, which is your
area? I don't I don't havean answer, and I know this will
sound like a cop out, butEWIS will always find a way. Yeah,
we always find a way to keepthe cost down without diminishing the quality.
(51:47):
Okay, we always find a way. I think I think we'll leave
it there, Michael. I mean, this is very valuable talking to you.
Anything else you want to add,we've got about Thank you for your
time, Thank you for these podcasts. Thank you for the work you do
to to get messages like this outthere, because it's important to help educate
(52:12):
people and let them know what's goingon out there, and there are people
trying every day to do to dothe right to do the right things.
And thank you. Thank you toyour time and and to the to the
people listening, listening and watching.Yes, thanks, Thanks Michael. It's
Michael, and I'm going to sayit it's Michael Anis Bussy artists annisus the
(52:35):
artists here you are. I washumed Greek, but that's irrelevant. Yes,
and you you did start out onan ird at one point and gain
understanding that that was my first jobafter university, so yes, yes,
so yeah, So I'd like tohear the pain. I feel the pain
(52:57):
for the public service what they're goingthrough. And they are easy, they
are easy football, but it's whenyou're talking about people's livelihoods and they're trying
to do the best for the country. It's hard because everyone's trying to everyone's
trying to do their best. Theyare and I think communication, if we
understand it, it's all about communication. I mean, I'm just always delighted
(53:21):
with the trades on site, thehow how responsible, how polite, how
full of knowledge. The trades areon buildings, you know, and it's
all about the client. They bottomline, they're on someone's property. They're
creating a property for somebody else,and every step of the way, every
move they make is consideration. They'vegot to communicate with all of these other
trades to make sure they get thatbuilding built. It's a pleasure to be
(53:42):
involved. Actually, oh, look, they are the perfect people to problem
solve things. I would say thatlet's leave it there, the perfect problem
solve It's about problem solving and askingthe right questions. And we're at that
point. Let's hope it's all goingto be positive going forward. I would
just like to say politically that,you know, economics one O one,
(54:05):
is it when you're recessions, youdon't take money out of the market,
you know, the old days andthe big recession. They learned from the
Great Depression. When there's a recession, don't pull all the money out,
start putting money back in. Sothis redundancy seems to be like the antithesis
of that basic economics one O one. But who are we to know?
Who are we? That's right,We're just a humble podcast. I'm a
(54:28):
podcast. Let's yes no, Thankyou Michael. Here. We are Ross
and Darby on Local Architecture Now andMichael is coming into this program from the
mortgage and finance side of the constructionindustry. Thank you very much, Michael,
thank you, Thank you very muchtoo. All the very best,
Thank you, bye bye now.This program was made with assistance from New
(54:55):
Zealand for radio broadcast and through isthe bbm Z website. Thank you New
Zealand on air, MHM
Hi, Michael. Hello, niceto meet you, Nice to see you.
Nice to see you after this time. Hi, it's Rosalind Derby here
(00:23):
on Local Architecture now for May andwe have Michael and artists and the artists
wonderful name who is he is himself? But you also represent buzzing Off mortgages
and insurance. Is that correct?Yes, I'm a mortgage advisor with Buzzing
Off Mortgages and we try and makemortgages easy for people. Yeah, yeah,
(00:47):
I mean, and you're based inLower Hut right, Our officers in
Colbernie in Wellington, but we serveus and we have clients all over Wellington
and all over New Zealand. Actuallyright, And I'm I'm obviously the listeners
of myself. You know, it'sa youth of a mistake. We don't
know much about. That's why youknow you're you're involved in people's home buying
(01:14):
experience. But was Paula Clark whofirst suggested that you would be a great
voice in this area. Paula wespoke to earlier in the year about the
business of architecture and she she yourname came up. She's she's involved a
lot in New builds and as faras an architectural design capacity, yes,
it was great to have that connection. Yes. And she's also designed the
(01:38):
deck at my place and done otherdesign architecture work for a lot of clients
that I've passed to her, andshe's put on to me to get finance
once they're ready to progress with theirideas. Okay, Okay, that's how
that works. So am I ofthe understanding you your area is first home
(02:02):
buyers as a majority? Or amI wrong? No, you're right.
The majority of my business is predominantlyfirst home buyers. Then it used to
be investors until the previous government madeand the Reserve Bank made the rules too
hard and we don't get many investorsbuying as much property as we used to
(02:24):
do. So after first time buyers, the next predominant market is people doing
what we call pop ups, sothey're topping up their own home loan existing
home loans with a new amount todo their their renovations or structural renovations,
(02:46):
adding bedrooms on suites, things likethat, and that's that's where where we
do a lot of a lot ofwork. Well that's quite rewarding, isn't
it, Because not because people havegot their home, they're able to use
their home as a top up abilityto then develop the home for their for
their changing life. They're developing lifestylesand that's that's really where it's at,
(03:08):
isn't it for people's real lives.And I tend to forget because once I
do the loan, I sort of, you know, I help them through
that process where they get they sendme in voices, I send them to
the bank to pay, and thenonce the loan's drawn, you know,
we sort of depart, yeah,until we need to help them again with
(03:31):
either refixing their loan or something.But to your point, very rewarding,
and I forget how rewarding it is. And just the other day some client
sent me a photo saying, thisis how you helped us change our life.
Look at our transformed house with theextra bedroom, the extra on suite,
the extra living area. They werefortunate enough that they had the space
(03:54):
to do it. And the ladysaid to me, this is now our
dream home. That was our foreverhome anyway is now our dream home.
And thank you for making it happenso very very rewarding. Well, I
mean, for people's experience to createspace within their insisting home and to change
space as a architectural It's pretty profoundlife stuff. And I mean it all
(04:18):
comes down to money and the anxietyor the capacity to be able to get
the budget right. And therefore Iguess the role you to play is part
of that. I mean to waffleon a bit, it just brings back
to mind very really. I grewup in Stokes Valley. Mum and dad
built a tiny little house on thehill and Stokes Valley and they lived there
(04:39):
till they retired. And these milestoneswhere they got some money to add on
another room or add on to theliving room, or add on to the
boy's bedroom and create another bedroom.And then they did this and then they
did that, and it was likethroughout the whole life. Yeah, and
it was and great great section sizesin Stokes Valley is a very place is
(05:00):
especially in the Wellington region, whereyou've got the room now to do those
extensions. So that's why I thinkit's important that if people are thinking a
lot of people know what they wantand they think the answer is to go
and buy, to go and buya new home or find a house that
has what they want. But sometimesthe answer is right where they are in
(05:23):
their current home, and by speakingto someone like Paula the architect, you
know you don't you may not needto sell your house and find a new
one. The answer might be doingit within there, right you would,
within their current property. And Ithink that's that's why it's so important that
(05:43):
someone speaks to an expert first,so we can help point them in the
right direction. And that's one ofthe first things I say is, hey,
have you have you spoken to someone? Do you really know what your
requirements are and what it is youwant to do, Because once we know
that answer, then I can asksome other questions to see, right,
(06:04):
will you qualify for the money?And then it all flows from there.
Well, that was going to bemy question, you've just answered it.
So you are involved in asking thosequestions in terms of your in terms of
your advisory role one, so rightup the front. So if someone rings
me, the first thing they wantto know is, let's assume they've already
(06:25):
decided they want to do something anextension or renovation to their current house.
The first thing they want to know, and I want to know, is
do they have enough income to coverthe existing lending that they may have if
they have any, and then dothey have enough income to cover the new
(06:45):
lending. And that's where we usuallybecause it's so early on in the piece,
they don't necessarily know how much thingsare going to cost, and that
can be eye watering, So wetry and go with some ballpark figures or
I may be able to give themwhat their maximum could be, and then
(07:06):
it's off. They go to speakto the likes of Paula to see,
right, can it be done?And then they progress down that road and
then the next thing they have todo is see if they can get some
sort of cost or quotes from atrusted tradesman or professional, so that then
(07:28):
we can see if my original conversationwith them and what they're now been hit
with is reality or not. ButI mean, obviously they wouldn't want to
go down the road of going throughworking drawings with an architecture office if they
think that they can't actually finance thejob. I would imagine, and that's
why the discussion with me at thebeginning is so important. So I can
(07:50):
say, actually, based on yournumbers and based on I don't know,
I'm pretty confident I can get youanother two hundred thousand. You know,
without doing the application, I'm prettyconfident I could get you the two hundred
thousand. We can either do anapplication to see if the bank will approve
you for two hundred thousand, orif we're all confident that that's doable,
(08:15):
now go and speak to someone tosee can the nature of the work you
want done be done for that pricerange. So it's a bit of chicken
and egg with what we do first. But the banks, the banks prefer
to see me submitting an application wherethe client has already gone and done consented
(08:39):
drawings, a consent from the council, and there's at least a draft fixed
price contract. Okay, So whenthe bank sees that, they know that
this is a serious client, they'vegone and put skin in the game.
They've invested time and money to getit to a stage where the bank can
now make a decision. If Idon't provide that to the bank, the
(09:03):
bank will then say, hey,here's a conditional approval that we're going to
give two hundred or one hundred andfifty thousand to Rosalind, but we now
need to see the consented plans,the consent from the council a fixed price
contract, and you've got sixty orninety days to do it because then this
(09:26):
approval expires. And as we know, the way things tend to work in
this country is it can't get muchdone in sixty or ninety days. I
know in Loahart there's a lot ofpeople buying properties. Maybe you're saying not
so much the investors now, butfor a while in the last few years,
it was buying properties and putting thein accordance with the medium density housing
(09:48):
roles, putting these three times threetimes three on these sections. Is that
slowing down? And were you involvedin that? That's obviously investor you're not
involved in that. No, Ihaven't been, and I haven't seen any
for some time. To be fair, ever, I suppose was it the
JIB crisis? What was the rightword? When? When? When?
(10:09):
Was it all in the media aboutthe cost of jib? Yeah, the
cost of jib Yeah, Yeah,that was that was sort of late two
thousand and late twenty twenty. Really, so ever since then things have been
slowing down. Okay, I thoughtit was Lower Heart was the absolute gold
place for all of this capitalizing onthe medium density housing thing, which didn't
(10:31):
actually come in until twenty twenty Septembertwenty twenty. I think a lot of
plans have been consented or a lotof properties were brought and some of the
big developers, yes, they've done, they've already done their developments. But
since then, it's that's interesting.The costs are too high for the building,
(10:56):
the labor has been hard to get, and the interest rates are now
too high where it's for a lotof these developers it's become unaffordable to do
these to do these continue with someof these developments, okay, And of
course the buyers are no longer therelike they were back early in the early
(11:20):
two thousands, two thousand and one, where where the property market was just
crazy. And that's that's what's happenedin a nutshell. Okay, Okay,
So how do you see I mean, you're right, you're right in the
middle of what we call this housingcrisis, housing affordability. You're the person
in that. So how do yousee things as they are at the moment,
(11:43):
you know, philosophically or I mean, obviously you're still in the market
of providing people with home loans brokenhome loans, but you've got to look
at the environment we're in right now. So we've just finished ANZAC weekend school
holiday, we're coming into winter.That's usually the slow down in the property
(12:07):
market, so it's the quiet timeof year for us. But we've also
got another dynamic, especially in Wellington. Well I don't think it's as evident
in the rest of the country isthe impact the government cuts are having on
the public service at the moment.With the insecurity around jobs and job losses
(12:30):
and redundancies, people are very reluctantright now to do any sort of major
renovation or purchasing a property unless theyhave to because there's a lot of uncertainty
around their employment. And the lastthing you want to be doing is committing
yourself to a big project or abig lifestyle change when you're not sure if
(12:54):
you're going to have a job ina few months time. So that's making
it very difficult for a lot ofa lot of Wellingtonians at the moment.
And when there's uncertainty in the market, things just plateau or stop and look,
if you want to find an excusenot to buy right now or not
(13:16):
to do any work, there's alot of excuses. Interest rates are high
labor costs are high, materials arehigh. Council consents take a long time.
When you're worried about it. There'syou can find many excuses. But
those that are motivated to get onand do something, well, they'll just
get on and buy their first home, or buy their investment property, or
(13:37):
do their renovations and they just knowthat, hey, yes things may be
tough right now, but the sunalways rises at some stage, so they
just get on with it. There'salways those that just do. But it's
it's tough times. It is toughtimes. I heard the Reserve Bank say
the other day and their financial stabilityreport. The good news is that about
(14:01):
ninety percent of mortgage holders now havean interest rate with a five percent or
higher rate. So that means themajority of mortgage holders we've already have gone
through that pain. I've been onthose low rates to now high rate,
and we haven't seen the message themass mortgage sales that some people were expecting
(14:24):
all this bubble to burst so peoplecan come in and buy houses on the
cheap and then do them up andflip them on or hold on. It
just hasn't happened. I found thatnew Zealanders will do whatever it takes to
hold on to their home. Yeahyeah, yeah, So there was always
(14:46):
a constructor's always home buying world outthere. People are still living their lives,
buying their home, renovating their home, extending their families. It's always
going, it's part of your life. Life happens, people die, people
are born, people get married,people break up, and the one thing
(15:07):
they all have in common is theyneed a roof over their heads. And
it's either provided by the landlord andthe rental market, the government in some
cases and in most cases people wantto own their own home. It's still
the key we dream home. Yeah. So we hear a bit about rent
(15:31):
to own as developed as a developerproposal, but then again that's going to
be influenced by the huge margins,I mean, the narrow margins for a
developer in terms of the cost ofthe borrowing, the interest rate on the
money that they borrow to start thesethings up. And then they've got to
actually they don't get cash immediately fromthe sale. They've got to do a
rent to own. So what isthe what is the issue about that in
(15:54):
the future as a possibility for peopleto get on the letter, and the
banks are slowly moving towards having productsfor those to cater and those arrangements.
So that's that's definitely happening at themoment. The most important thing I say
to people if they're looking to dosomething like that as you've got to get
(16:18):
legal advice. You've got to getadvice to see what exactly what are you
getting yourself into. And by that, I mean what are the what are
the how much of the property willyou own? How much will you own
over time? How do you buythe developer out eventually or the landlord or
(16:41):
whoever the owner is with the jointventure. There's a lot of there's a
lot of questions that I don't thinkpeople really understand. So my first point
are called are saying right, Itcan be done. There are products out
there, but you've got to havespoken to a lawyer to really understand what
you're doing, because if something goeswrong or you need to sell, or
(17:04):
there's difficulty with the mortgages, thingscan become problematic. I mean, I
guess both government and banks don't knowvery much about it either, including it's
very early on. It's very earlyon. I mean we think of it
(17:25):
as happening in Europe people rent forthe rest of their lives or whatever.
Yes, yes, but not hereso much because I just say New Zealand
is a country of you know,have your own home. The goal is
for most people, and I thinkI think it's about a third or I
think roughly about two thirds of us. I think I can't remember what the
status own our own home. Roughlya third rent. So yeah, it's
(17:48):
an emerging area. Put it thatway, Roslin, an emerging area.
Okay, we'll see what happens infive to ten years. Yes, I
mean it might be. Part ofemerging is that we have a so called
crisis. I don't know if youwould call it that. You're in the
world all the time, so itmay not be at crisis to you.
It looks good in the political statement. Look, I think I think the
problem is we don't have enough housingto accommodate everyone. Is that true?
(18:15):
That's the problem, and we seeit with the Okay, there's there's record
numbers of Kiwi's leaving, but there'salso equally a record number of of migrants
coming to the country, and there'sjust not enough housing to house the mord
And I think that's that's why we'veseen a supply and demand and balance over
(18:37):
the last few years. And that'swhy property price has just soared because there
was just too much demand for notenough stock. And that's why they've had
to come up with this these creativeideas with these housing density projects and loosening
the rules and things like that.And and like you said, Lower Huts
been air marked. I think JohnsonVall was another hub that they had said
(19:02):
as well. But in my timerecent times of driving through Lower Hut and
Johnsonville, I haven't seen massive threestory buildings or developments going up everywhere.
Okay, well not yet anyway.Right. It's that it's just until someone
(19:23):
addresses that the the land zoning makingit easy for developers to get the land
to get the money because given developersto getting the money to do their work
is hard, and interest rates havebeen so high. Like I said before,
it just seems a little bit uneconomicat the moment. The numbers just
don't stack up for people to gointo those into those ventures. Yes,
(19:48):
I was talking about it last weekwith another architect, and it sounds like
the margins are so slim, youknow, it seems like Oh, you
know, we can develop. We'vegot this opportunity to build like six dwellings
on one side that normally was onlyzone for one. It sounds like a
bit of a gold rush. Butin reality, with the inflation being what
it is, the money they haveto borrow in the process of the development
(20:10):
is just eye watering. As yousaid, yeah, yeah, it's too
much risk for and and I meanespecially like I said now in Wellington,
the the demand has dropped off.Yeah, that's interesting. So that so
that with this redundancy program that we'reseeing in recent weeks, that's going to
(20:30):
have a real impact on the onthe market. But you are saying,
there's always people who are going tobuy a house, do it, up
sell it by another one. Lifewill still happen. People are cautious at
the moment. That's that's what itis. People are cautious and they're just
not rushing into things like like theywere after COVID, where you know it's
(20:56):
holistic. Yeah, Australians willing toiletpaper? Was that? What that was?
That what they were We were laughingat them for there was no toilet
paper there. The Americans were buyingguns and we were buying houses that Oh
yeah, we were buying houses.It was crazy, and then there was
no jib left. Yes, that'sright, you know, it just it
was. It was obscene those days. And that's why the Reserve Bankers and
(21:22):
the previous goverment have been putting allthese rules in place. You know,
they removed the interest deductibility for investors, they made the lvrs, the loan
to value ratios, they brought thoseback, and the Reserve Banker is now
doing proposals on bringing in debt toincome ratios, meaning you won't be able
to you'll be able to borrow acertain amount depending on your income, so
(21:51):
it might be you might only beable to borrow six times your income.
All these things that have been athigh interest rates. Of course, yes,
these things have been had come into keep prices from running away like
they were for us after covid Y, and they've made things come to and
(22:11):
holt and just that you know,just just stay flat. Well they did,
they intended to do that, andapparently it's working. You know what
was actually working on It's worked.Okay, so we're getting back to a
different baseline. Yes, And asas things as those restrictions lift or change
(22:32):
or relax. I think the ReserveBank just wants to slowly open the flood
gates slowly and take the foot offthe brake to allow more and more people
and into the property buying business.From my perspective, the demand has not
gone. The phone still rings,people still want to buy their house.
We they either don't meet the criteriaor I can't make the numbers work.
(22:57):
Okay, So that's the demand isthere. We just can't help everyone,
okay. Okay. So the restrictionsare there. You're working with those restrictions,
those legist of restrictions, and that'simpacting on whether people can move forward
with their purchase ideas. Yeah,okay, So how does that affect Obviously
(23:18):
it's the next question, how doesthat affect your business? You're still seeing
you and the property market, yousee it through all different changes and times.
Yes, I think I think thelook some of the some of the
rules and regulations. Sometimes I justI just question, you know, I
do have my thoughts that that it'snot helping people or the country move ahead
(23:45):
in the right way. You know. I sometimes think, you know,
if I look at the government,what they did with that whole triple c
if A they made it. Thoseare the days where the banks were going
through the bank statements with the finetooth comb. How much have they spent
on KFC, how much have theyspent on cough for uber eats? There
was ridiculous the banks. The banksare in the business to make money and
(24:08):
they don't want to lend money outto risky people. And our banks in
New Zealand have never faced well,not that I can remember. I can't
remember in the last ten, fifteen, twenty years any of our banks having
major issues. You know, we'renot We're not. We're not Latin America
(24:32):
or parts of North Asia, youknow where there's problems with the banking system.
New Zealand has a very robust bankingsystem. So I think to regulate
and hit the banks is the easy. It's just easy. I think for
politicians where they should have put theireffort is in the payday lenders, you
know people, the payday lenders you'llfine your immediate finance, the loan sharks.
(25:02):
The amount of people I see thathave got pain ridiculously high interest rates
on car loans or buy now paidlater type things and credit cards and loans
that I haven't even heard of.That's I think where that energy should have
been channeled into. But I thinkthat's in the too hard basket. So
(25:26):
the other the rest of the industrygot hit. Yeah, it's definitely had
an impact, and I think thingswill slowly change, but it's not all
going to happen at once, becauseif it does, the interest rates drop,
their house prices will will go upagain because you'll just let all the
(25:48):
demand back in. Yeah, sothey're holding that demand back with these interest
rate the ICA whatever it is that'skeep and all their other restrictions. I
mean, personally, being on thekey saver, when everyone was moaning about
the interest rates going up from twoto three percent to seven percent, I
(26:11):
thought, well, you know,when you're on two percent, your KIV
saver hardly owns any money at all. And when I bought money pattern and
those with the term deposit, hardlyany money you're earning, and it goes
up and you're earning more money onyour term deposits. But also I mean,
at one point, I think myKIV saver went down in a month
because it was just so low inthe interest rates. But when I bought
(26:32):
my place, you know, thefirst interest rate, the first interest rate
was eleven percent, and the secondmortgage was fourteen percent. That was what
I was used to way back when, So you know, I couldn't understand
all this, you know, bizarrenessabout oh the interest rates going up,
you know, I mean, youhave to have them at a certain rate.
And look, and the bank stresstests work. So at the moment
when I'm doing a mortgage for someone, the bank's stress testing the mortgage at
(26:56):
around nine percent. Yes, soeven though the rates around six and a
half seven percent, the seven anda half, the three's testing that at
nine percent. Now, I don'tthink we're going to get a nine percent
interest rate. In fact, interestrates are meant to stay flat for a
while at these high rates before theygo down. So you know, the
(27:18):
bank's already doing those checks anyway,and you're right nowhere near fourteen percent for
homeowners anyway. Yeah, yeah,and that was when it was a real
boom time as well, of course. Yeah. Yeah, so public private,
I mean, Kaying or are doinga huge amount of building, as
(27:41):
you know, that's the state sideof providing housing. It seems, I
mean, to us the layperson,there seems to be so much King or
a housing bursting out everywhere, butthat's not your area. You wouldn't have
anything to do with that. Butthat's the supplying of housing, isn't it.
Yes, Yeah, but developing weneed we need more supply, and
(28:07):
especially for those at the lower socioeconomic end, because there's a lot of
people that I cannot help. Yeah, and they need they need. There
needs to be a solution for thosepeople, and that's where you need the
government intervention. Okay, but thereseems to be a lot of it going
on. I mean, it's likea whole new splurge on government housing.
That's that's it. Is it corrector is it still limited? I don't
(28:30):
know. And the prices don't seemlow to me. I look at the
one bedroom apartments and they're up therein the eight hundred thousand and these nice
news. Yeah, I don't understandthat. I don't play in that space.
I couldn't answer that's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Who knows what the future is.I mean, I guess it will just
be the same as it's always been. You know, there will always be
(28:52):
people who are buying their homes,renovating their homes. Look at renovating to
sell. It's not at the momentbecause of the environ we're in with the
high living, high cost of living, high interest rates. But things will,
you know, inflation will get undercontrol. Things will stabilize at some
stage and the price cycle market willwill go through its next cycle of house
(29:19):
prices slowly, you know, incrementallygoing up, and then at some stage
there'll be there will be another boom, you know, and then and then
we'll just go through the same phaseagain. It will just go draw.
Things will happen, money will gettight, the conditions will change. It's
all cyclical. We just we justlive in a time where we're just not
(29:44):
patient enough. We just want thingsto always be in the good times and
you know, which is human nature, you know, and to get over
the bad times as quick as possible. And that's why every time you hear
the media when the Reserve Bank,when is it going to be cut?
When is it going to be cut? Well, we're not there yet.
We're doing the hard work now,so the day will come, but we're
(30:07):
not there yet. Do you mean, when's the information going to the inflation
going to be cut? Yes?Yeah, so yeah, it'll happen.
Things will come back to stability ahouse. Prices are store ridiculously high though,
let's face it, I mean,are are they how it is?
For well, I look not ashigh as they were, that's for sure.
And that's actually it's a buyer's marketat the moment because there's so many
(30:30):
properties for sale but not enough buyers. Okay, the buyers do have the
rich picking, but to become abuyer, you've got to get the money,
and the money is getting hard toget. And then plus the uncertainty
the few buyers that are out therethey can pick what they want, so
it's hard for people to sell atthe moment. Yeah, and that's what's
(30:52):
keeping the prices suppressed at the moment. Okay, So that's the cycle wherein
yeah, yeah, yeah. Butthis public private thing, I guess that's
just a sort of an idea.It's you know, like give men,
councils, maybe combining with developers todeliver housing. That's not your area,
(31:15):
of course, but but it's anarea that that someone's going to have to
look at and either with developers orwith landlords. And I know landlords get
a bit of a bad rap,but we need these people in the market
to provide housing. Yes, wedo so provide that service, and you
(31:37):
know, it's it's an here.I think it's it's like a lot of
things at the moment, things aredone in piece meal. There's not a
holistic view of how are we goingto you know, I mean we were
having we've got don't know if we'vestill got them. For heaven's sakes,
we've got water restrictions in Wellington,you know we had in summer. You
(32:00):
know, how can you build morewhen there's not enough water for the existing
people a country that's plentiful of rainand water. So to me, it
seems like we need someone I don'tknow who, but we need that holistic
view of where are we going toput developments and is it going to have
(32:21):
the infrastructure that we need in twentytwenty four to accommodate those things. And
I don't know the answer to that, but I'm worried that that thinking is
not being done because my feeling,well within my world, is that there
will slowdown. There's more room forsome of this holistic thinking to start to
(32:45):
have time, to have time forthe think tanks, you know, time
for thinking of there is more alternative. We're starting to look at community and
urban design. You don't just knockup a few buildings. You actually consider
about the community environmental context. Andthere hasn't been the time or that expertise
to be involved in development. Butyou know, maybe the slowdown you're getting
(33:07):
chances for these conversations and this potentialfor broader design approach to to emerge.
I hope so, and I hopeyou're right. I think that I think
that I think the difficulty is weseem to work in a three year cycle
by the political with the central governmentor local government, so there's not that
(33:30):
continuity to to think of these plansand then see them through in the long
term, because these things don't happenovernight and they need that long term planning
investment and the infrastructure to support,you know, the sewage, the water,
the electricity. You know, arewe having solar More and more people
(33:53):
are having electric cars. Where thewhat are the buses? You know?
I know people want to have cycleways and things like that, but people
still have cars. When he parking, we just can't have these big places
with no places for people to parka car. The transport hubs, the
doctors, the nurses, the schools, there's a lot of things, and
(34:17):
you know, and sometimes I feellike the country's broke. Everyone wants money,
but there's no money to go around. So yeah, it seems like
people say, yes, it's greatto think and plan, but you know,
everything seems to get done on thesmell of an oily rag. And
that's what lets us down. Okay, there's a few. I was just
(34:37):
talking to Wayne Bishop the live Inyou know, I don't know if you
know he did Somerset are not somespelled Furst actually in the old Kimberly site
in live In. And I thinkhe has had visions for so long and
he has practiced and development for solong. He's in love in that he
(35:00):
can sort of like understand that thelarge scope of things and plan ahead like
a ten year plan. And youknow, those developers are valuable because they
understand the whole process end to end, yes, and they understand the margins,
and they're structured so that they candevelop what they know is viable.
(35:20):
But they know what they're the finances, and they can and they can manage
that and they're very very valuable tohave around. And they wait and they
can work their offer to work withpublic service. They they're there to advise
and support local council, but theyalso are very highly commercially alousen yeah,
and other sort of people that youjust want to I don't know what's the
(35:43):
word, let loose, just justlet them, just let them get on
with it. Yes, remove thered tape and just let them get on
with it, you know. Andyeah, jeez, it takes takes a
long time. And you're right,they're so valuable to our community. They
are. But the other side ofit is my world is as architecture,
(36:07):
as design, architecture, urban design, and I think in the slowdown,
I'm finding there's a chance for theseideas from my perspective to be around the
table potentially. I mean when Ifirst approached to local council saying I'd like
to, you know, provide urbandesign advice or architecture, I was told,
(36:29):
oh, no, we've just hada meeting with all our developers.
You know that they bring in theirown architects. You know, we don't
need to talk. We don't needarchitecture in the council or whatever because our
developers. But what the developers dois that they come up with their package
and they tender to the architects,you sort of slot the architectures slotted in
at the end, you know,when they want building consent drawings, that
architectural idea and that thinking holistically isn'thasn't actually had a place. I mean,
(36:54):
the developers know what it's going tocost them, they know how much
of that they want to spend,and then they'll just get the concealer drawings
and the design approved for the resourceconsent, rather than yeah, having all
of these players around the table atthe same time, from the very beginning,
from the very beginning. And that'sand that's like I said, yeah,
(37:15):
it's we just need someone to havethat long term plan in thinking and
the commitment to see it through.Yeah, yeah, yeah, commitment to
see it through. I think Ithink that the will is there. I
mean people have been like you know, sound developers. They understand, like
you know, you're in the housingmarket. You understand what the day to
day realities are to provide for theclient, but you understand the bigger picture
(37:37):
and you see because you're in theindustry as I am, you see what
the problems are and can we askasking the right questions and and it's just
pulling it all together and maybe theslowdown is a chance for some of these
things to I don't know. Well, I think, well, I hope
people do take the opportunity to todo that thinking because it needs to happen.
(38:00):
It needs to happen. Yes,And I was speaking to another developer
builder and he was saying, thereis stuff to do. He didn't say
it quite in such a polite way. He said, there is stuff that
has to be done. He knowsit has to be done, and he
wants to get on with it,but it is hard getting the job,
you know, for him to getthe jobs and through the door when he
knows. He's doing it every day, so he's aware of what you can
(38:22):
do with a piece of land andwhat people will need. But it's it's,
you know, I guess it's thebalance of the political and and then
and then the public. You know, they're given you would know, they're
given options as to have what sortof building, you know, and they're
not necessarily going to ask for differentoptions because they are being told this is
(38:45):
sort of house that's going at themarket, and this is this is what's
available, and this is what youknow you're going to have. So that
until until something really novel is provided, then the general average person won't be
demanding it. Correct agree with everythingyou just said. Yeah, I don't
know if you've been following christ Church. I haven't really, but people are
(39:07):
saying christ Church is starting to takebetter shape than it was when it first
kept off. Yes, yes,no, you're and I've heard that as
well. And I think you know, and I know i've heard because I've
heard rumblings also about the stadium thereas well, and the cost and that.
But I think once that stadium isbuilt, then I think, well,
the rest of the country will trulysee christ Church shine and how they've
(39:34):
come out from the from the earthquake. You know, I think they'll truly
shape that off once they start havingsome world events there. I think it's
like the best kept secret at themoment. Well, it was from a
few years ago, and I thinkpeople are now living in it and are
realizing it that, yeah, thatthis is the this They've done it well,
(39:55):
they've done it well. But againthat's taken a long time. It's
not exactly perfect, but that's that'sa good that's a good example. Well,
I guess they had a clean slateand it was all about Harriet's first
but over time, apparently they're gettingsome really nice connections to the river,
the River Avon, and they're gettingsome nice kind of well they're getting obviously
taken a while, but the architect'squality apparently is appealing to to to residents
(40:21):
and visitors in these housing things.I'm just trying to think. I think
I've had at least I can't tellyou how many clients, but there's been
a number that have moved from Wellingtonto christ Jury to get bigger bang for
their buck. They've sold their housein Wellington and they feel like they're living
in mansions in christ Church. Okay, and they're loving it. They haven't
(40:45):
looked back. Put it that way, put that we're right, Yes,
and with the new the new sortof built format, it's something new and
vibrant and yeah, and they cantest out ideas around urban design concepts to
do with it's working on the looksthat I've heard. Yeah, that sounds
like that'll be there could be agood case study in the in the years
(41:06):
to come. Okay. I'm bothyou know, on the positives and the
lessons learned as well. Okay,that's interesting. I mean, like you.
I'm always positive, you know.I mean we're talking about land,
people and building. I mean,it's it's a great mix, and it's
always changing. But everybody is skilledin their particular field. And and but
(41:29):
I mean everyone wants to do thebest. Everybody wants to be the best,
the builders, the trades, onthe on the sites. Yeah,
and I'm talking, I'm talking inmost and you know, you're always going
to have your exceptions to that,But most Kiwis just want to do a
good job. Yeah, you know, they want to do a good job,
do a good product that they cansit back and be proud of.
(41:52):
Yeah, and that's that's really simple. And they just want to be left
alone to get on with it.Give us the rule so we don't do
anything crazy, and just let usdo it, you know, let just
let us at it. And Ijust think if we just allowed a little
bit more of our key ingenuity tobe allowed, it will just make the
(42:15):
country much better. I think it'slovely. I'd love to end the program
yet there, but we've got anotherfew another few minutes. But that's that's
really nice. I think that's exactlyright. I mean, that's the nature
of the building industry, the architecturalworld. We are providing the client with
the advice that we want to,you know, connecting them to their site
and meeting them with the builders,and you're involved in the financial side of
(42:38):
it. We're all in it together, you know, from the finance,
the architects, the builders, thecouncil, to even the people in the
showrooms with the final finishers, youknow, for that just you know,
because the are the things that yousee when the video comes out of the
property exactly, the water coming outof the nice tap in the kitchen,
(43:00):
a bathroom, you know, it'sit's and and also those are the bits
where the client is most connected toselection and design, aren't they. That's
where the clients you just say,okay, you can, I'm happy for
you to go for it, andand they go and make all those decisions
and talk. And then that's whenthose suppliers become very much intimate with the
(43:21):
build because they're helping was providing thebest quality for the right price or whatever
budget. Yeah, and I thinkthat's and then you know, just just
going to that visual you know,like you know, I saw you laughing
with the with the with the tap, the water coming out of the tap,
and then that and the lovely nicheand the child shower exactly, and
(43:43):
then all of what we have justspoken about is forgotten. Yeah, I'm
with the planning, the consent,the finances. It's all forgotten. It's
that lovely big shower and the selectionof that perfect tile. Yes, it's
all all. That's the lighting,all the beautiful lighting fixtures, it's all
forgotten. It's all forgotten, thewhole machinery of it all. And that's
(44:07):
our job. Is that our jobto house people so that they feel well
being comfortable. Our job is toget all those mechanics in place. Yes,
and we also know that we haveto communicate with everybody to make that
happen. It's not just me oryou, it's we know that there's a
(44:27):
whole process, and the client it'swhat they're paying for, but they don't
really even know it. And Iwas just going to say, and I
remind my clients, you know,don't worry about these cups or worries now,
because when you're in your house,all of this would have been forgotten
and you'll be sitting in there thinking, wow, how blessed are we?
(44:52):
Absolutely? Absolutely yeah, Now it'sreally good to have to talk that with
you, because I think people,I don't know if they've listened to this
little conversation. They just want thebeautiful home and getting down to deciding what
shrubs to put around the deck andall that sort of thing. But it
(45:13):
is how it works. It look. Nothing nothing like that comes easy.
Everything is hard work. It ishard work. It's a challenge. And
like you say, what you sayto your clients, I say, at
the beginning of the contract, youknow it's going to be challenging. It's
always challenging. But it's also that'swhy we have these good contracts in place.
That's why we have a good setof consent drawings that are fully approved
(45:37):
by counsel. That's why we havea series of inspections. It's challenging,
but also we're here if you wantus, and and we've done it before
and it's part of the process.Look, I've never met anyone who said
to me, we wished we waited. Everyone has said we wished we had
done it sooner. Okay, that'sreally interesting, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(46:02):
yes, but we do. Yeah. I think a good contract is
important, and you would know thatwhen you're talking about when you're you wouldn't
you wouldn't be part of the buildingcontract phase or do you have to see
that when you submit applications the bankneeds to see the fixed price contract.
Okay, so you're part of that, Okay, but I don't review it
(46:23):
the bank. The lawyers review that. The lawyers review that. Yes,
so that's part of that your processas well, through through the banking of
it all. Yeah. Yeah.And then of course, some people love
it so much they love the excitementthat they want to do it all over
again, whereas others, and youknow, it's their home and and it's
(46:43):
it's a slight they want to gotake it slowly. They want to do
it really slowly. I think thatthey're not doing it in a rush,
whereas others get so sort of thewhole project is so challenging, but it's
also exciting that they they want tostart again and renovate another whole place.
Yes, I do that for awhile, until they say, okay,
no, we're done. Yeah,yeah, we're done exactly. Yeah.
(47:06):
Yeah. I think I think.I think it's just say I think this
downturn is a chance for We've beentalking about urban design for a long time,
but it's never really taken realistically.It's urban designers are all marshaled into
council offices to basically just look overthe resource can send applications which are too
(47:27):
tricky for the planners. That's wherethe urban design skill gets like a pick
in the box, a tick inthe box. And that's not valuing the
skill, no, rather than atrue collaborative yeah, and a true before
you know, before the is juststarting at the beginning and understanding that I
think, well, you know thatHuwis have been buying houses for one hundred
(47:52):
and fifty years, but now maybewe can become a little bit more I
don't know, europeanized or whatever.That we're also buying into community. You
know, you're providing the money toget that house out of the ground and
complete it. But once they've gotthat house, you know, there's all
of those sense of neighbors and connectionand the view hills and that it's good
(48:12):
for the environment. That's not thewhole thing. There's a whole lot of
webinars around at the moment about carbonemissions and carbon zero and that's impacting on
more costs to drawings that we haveto Now next year will have to submit
to consent the carbon emission content ofevery aspect of the building. So that's
more fees for the client. Butthat's when urban design is important, because
(48:37):
every stick that you create to buildthat building has to create more than just
a home. Now, it hasto create good for the environment and good
for overall community well being around mentalhealth, social issues, and that's what
people want. People want that aswell. They want to feel like they're
adding to the solutions and not partof the problem. So you know,
(48:58):
it's lucky that we live in anarration where they're aware of these issues the
importance of them, and they wantto be part of that, of that
solution. That's wonderful that you seeit that way. That's you're seeing it.
That's what I'm saying. Yeah,yes, yeah, I am seeing
that. People understand. People understand. They might not like, they may
(49:21):
not like the cost, but theyunderstand the why do that? Well,
We've done so many, so manyyears of it, you know, you
know, I mean, I ifI look at myself, you know how
I was hated when the single plasticbags disappeared. Yes, but I've got
I've got so many of the properones in the car now. I felt
(49:43):
like I was collecting them for awhile. Yeah, but it's like it's
you know, it takes a whileas you become older. You know,
it takes a wilder breakout of yourown habits. And yeah, you know
you understand the importance of why youhave to do these things. Yeah,
and you're you're helping. I knowthat thing about the plastic bag. I
(50:04):
need another plastic bag for my rubbish. Where's my pleasant bag? But yeah,
it seems ridiculous. And we movedon. We're okay, We're okay
with that. Yeah, there's noone marching in the streets wanting to bring
back the plastic bag. You know, we haven't. You know, I'm
not having to have problems. Iwill love you know, it's not keeping
me up at night. You know, I'm not worried about the World's moved
(50:24):
on. People understand that, youunderstand, you this is the world we
live in now. So that's reallygreat. You're you're with you're with the
buyer and the and the homeowner,and you're saying this is how and I'm
talking, you know, I'm feelinglike, you know, we're in the
sort of theoretical expertise kind of worldas it just too much for for the
(50:45):
demand to pick up this idea.But you're saying that, you know,
people are ready, especially with theyounger generations as they come through. You
know they I think they are moreenvironmentally aware than than you and I were
when they were buying their first home. Yeah, so all of these good
(51:06):
things they cost. How can wedo it? How can design? You're
understanding the cost aspect of all ofthis. If we can get good quality
homes but also community and environmental context, how do we do it without increasing
cost? That's the main thing.I mean, then it becomes too precious,
and then we've kind of shot ourselvesin the foot. And I think
(51:27):
if we can value design to meetthe needs of cost, which is your
area? I don't I don't havean answer, and I know this will
sound like a cop out, butEWIS will always find a way. Yeah,
we always find a way to keepthe cost down without diminishing the quality.
(51:47):
Okay, we always find a way. I think I think we'll leave
it there, Michael. I mean, this is very valuable talking to you.
Anything else you want to add,we've got about Thank you for your
time, Thank you for these podcasts. Thank you for the work you do
to to get messages like this outthere, because it's important to help educate
(52:12):
people and let them know what's goingon out there, and there are people
trying every day to do to dothe right to do the right things.
And thank you. Thank you toyour time and and to the to the
people listening, listening and watching.Yes, thanks, Thanks Michael. It's
Michael, and I'm going to sayit it's Michael Anis Bussy artists annisus the
(52:35):
artists here you are. I washumed Greek, but that's irrelevant. Yes,
and you you did start out onan ird at one point and gain
understanding that that was my first jobafter university, so yes, yes,
so yeah, So I'd like tohear the pain. I feel the pain
(52:57):
for the public service what they're goingthrough. And they are easy, they
are easy football, but it's whenyou're talking about people's livelihoods and they're trying
to do the best for the country. It's hard because everyone's trying to everyone's
trying to do their best. Theyare and I think communication, if we
understand it, it's all about communication. I mean, I'm just always delighted
(53:21):
with the trades on site, thehow how responsible, how polite, how
full of knowledge. The trades areon buildings, you know, and it's
all about the client. They bottomline, they're on someone's property. They're
creating a property for somebody else,and every step of the way, every
move they make is consideration. They'vegot to communicate with all of these other
trades to make sure they get thatbuilding built. It's a pleasure to be
(53:42):
involved. Actually, oh, look, they are the perfect people to problem
solve things. I would say thatlet's leave it there, the perfect problem
solve It's about problem solving and askingthe right questions. And we're at that
point. Let's hope it's all goingto be positive going forward. I would
just like to say politically that,you know, economics one O one,
(54:05):
is it when you're recessions, youdon't take money out of the market,
you know, the old days andthe big recession. They learned from the
Great Depression. When there's a recession, don't pull all the money out,
start putting money back in. Sothis redundancy seems to be like the antithesis
of that basic economics one O one. But who are we to know?
Who are we? That's right,We're just a humble podcast. I'm a
(54:28):
podcast. Let's yes no, Thankyou Michael. Here. We are Ross
and Darby on Local Architecture Now andMichael is coming into this program from the
mortgage and finance side of the constructionindustry. Thank you very much, Michael,
thank you, Thank you very muchtoo. All the very best,
Thank you, bye bye now.This program was made with assistance from New
(54:55):
Zealand for radio broadcast and through isthe bbm Z website. Thank you New
Zealand on air, MHM
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