President's Address to AGM 2007

25 Oct 2007

Since the last AGM, two of our prominent members have passed away. Helen Watt who was on the Canterbury Executive Committee for 10 years and Secretary of NZPIF for 6 years and Ken Bates who was a long time member and Ex President of the Otago Property Investors Assn. Both of these people will be remembered for their time and effort given to helping there associations prosper.

It was an interesting and often worrying year for property investors. The government led by Treasury blamed us for fuelling the economy and forcing house prices out of reach of first homeowners. We explained that homeowners buy with their hearts and investors buy using their heads. Homeowners will pay anything to purchase the house they have fallen in love with. Whereas the investor will back off and look for the next opportunity, which have been few and far between in this market.

We have been threatened with higher mortgage interest rates and more IRD staff has been employed to chase us down. There have been suggestions of ring fencing losses, disallowing LAQC’s, taxing mortgages, introducing capital gains tax. We are blamed for the escalation of the Accommodation Supplement.

The NZPIF was there to talk to the newspapers, radio and television to put some rationale into the hype and explain the negative long term effects of introducing new policy. This has all quietened down now. The market has flattened out and public focus has gone from property investors to the Real Estate Institute and to financial advisors.

Early this year as in accordance with our strategic plan we employed the services of a marketing manager. This has proved to be most successful. Jan Hains has met with all associations and has learned to deal with the voluntary aspect of our business. She has started to implement plans to increase membership and the profile of associations and the NZPIF.

Thomas Chin our political lobbyist continues to represent us well, by making us aware of policies that may affect us and by introducing us to MPs that may influence our business. This year he met with us in Wellington and introduced us to key opposition MPs to prepare for a possible change of government next year. We were well received by the MPs we met. While we were there Dr Cullen publicised his suggestion of “ring fencing”. We got ample opportunity to react to that with the media and MPs and I would go far as to suggest our presence and opportunity to express the futility of such a scheme stopped it being aired further.

The NZPIF executive has worked well as a team this year. We met for a full day every 6 weeks to plan our strategies and to look at the environment to ensure we are covering the major issues. I thank them all for all the hard work they put in this year, for being willing to listen to other’s opinions during debates, and also for the work they put in carrying out the tasks assigned to them at the meetings.

Three executives stood down during the year. Craig Paddon's 1 year term as Immediate Past President finished in April. Darcy Hogue left to tow his caravan around Australia. Dick Massicks emigrated to Norfolk Island where he now owns and runs a saw milling business. These 3 people added to the proficiency of the NZPIF. Towards the end of this year we welcomed 2 new executives on board. Owen Smith from Timaru replaced Dick as Southern Regional rep and Lacey Ward from Hawkes Bay came on as Secretary. We decided to keep using a paid minute secretary so that the secretary could have time to join the debate.

A certain amount of our time this year has been taken up with organising the conference. We could only allocate one executive to take control of this and ensure the conference was organised to the usual standard and to the expectations of members and sponsors. Terry le Grove took on that role and has done a great job. Our office MG Marketing and office manager Janette has done an exceptional job of ensuring this year's conference runs smoothly and efficiently. There is much to be considered and attended to when planning a conference, so thank you Janette for your great job. I am sure it is going to be a most memorable event.

The Tenancy Tribunal Orders online is now up and running. I with several others have been trailing and testing the new system and it is easy to use and will be a great new tool for landlords to use when selecting tenants.

It is 7 years since Craig Paddon and I first met with Tenancy Services, court officials and tenancy adjudicators asking that tribunal orders be made public so we could put a stop to bad tenants going from one property to the next with landlords being unaware of their history.

In November we expect to see a public discussion document on the government’s proposed amendments to the RTA changes. Clayton Cosgrove will announce some of these on Sunday morning.

The executive hopes you have a great weekend in Christchurch and we hope to catch up with you during the conference.

Thank you.
Martin Evans
President
New Zealand Property Investors Federation