Find out which city has the most optimistic investors
Property investors’ confidence for the third quarter of 2021 (Q3 2021) has rebounded to its highest level since 2017 despite the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the latest ASB Investor Confidence Survey.
The report found that investor confidence increased from 14% in the previous quarter to a net 25% for the three months to October, matching the last peak in the first quarter of 2017.
Despite being in extended lockdown during the survey period, Aucklanders were the most optimistic among investors as their confidence increased from 18% to 31% during the same period compared to 23% for the rest of New Zealand. This also means the latest figure is a seven-year high.
ASB senior economist Chris Tennent-Brown said the results were the opposite of what they forecast, especially as a new COVID-19 variant hit the country this year.
“It’s been a very interesting quarter with the emergence of the Delta variant of COVID-19 in August and the subsequent lockdown of the country. We would have expected this to have more of an impact on confidence, but the results have shown the opposite,” Tennent-Brown said.
“Investment confidence seems to have been resilient to the latest lockdown, in a similar way to the strength we have seen in business confidence surveys over recent months.”
Read more: Joint survey delivers latest property investor insight
ASB economists expect investors to focus on the longer term and be more confident that the lockdowns would not impact their investments.
“The very high levels of confidence we’re seeing are encouraging, particularly given the day-to-day frustrations about [the] lockdown,” Tennent-Brown said.
Focusing on property investors’ behaviour and their plans for the future, a joint survey by economist Tony Alexander and Crockers Property Management (Crockers) published in October 2021 found that a gross 28% of respondents thought about buying another property within the next 12 months, up from 25% in September. Meanwhile, a gross 24% claimed they plan to sell their property.
When buying another property, investors were considering either buying a new property or an existing one while taking note of the medium to long-term implications of the government’s plan to remove resource consent requirements for intensified developments in the top five cities.
