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The hospitality design trend making everyone feel at home

There’s not many part of our lives that have been left untouched by the pandemic. But while many aspects, like the lockdowns designed to manage exposure to COVID have been hard to live with, there have been some positive changes too. Notably, as offices closed and everyone started working from home, the traditional division between the two spheres started to break down. And while hospitality services in city centres saw patronage slow and even disappear, suburban cafes, bars and restaurants grew in popularity as customers looked to stay close to home and support local business. 

For more stories like this, pick up the latest issue of Kanebridge Quarterly here.

Creative director of leading interior design firm YSG Studio, Yasmine Saleh Ghoniem, says although hospitality businesses undeniably suffered during the pandemic, it has reframed the way many patrons enjoy and use their local restaurants, bars and cafes.

“Since lockdowns ended, I’m noticing Sydneysiders are following this notion of loyalty to their ’hood which, until now, was more a Melbourne thing,” she says. “I suppose it’s evolved from ordering in from your local to support it during tough times. 

“Hospo owners are increasingly offering a range of experiences to encourage locals in particular to frequent their venue, treating it like it’s an extension of their home.”

Creative director of leading interior design firm YSG, Yasmine Saleh Ghoniem

Borrowing from residential design to inform restaurant and bar design was already in evidence prior to the ‘work from home’ phenomenon, but COVID accelerated the design trend so that the lines have become increasingly blurred.

Bars with comfortable, or careworn, sofas and cafes with mismatched lounge chairs,  well-padded banquettes and layered textures have become the go-to options for designers.

Ghoniem says clients are now regularly cherry picking from both sides of the fence to create sophistication at home or warm and inviting spaces in hospitality environments to offer a level of subtlety and individuality. Bedroom suites resemble hotel rooms and dining spaces echo restaurant and cafe style. Even the home kitchen has not been spared.

“Let’s not forget the home bar,” Ghoniem says. “Lockdowns are well and truly over, but the habit of making a cocktail after work is here to stay. We’re incorporating them in dining rooms and kitchens with gorgeous stone selections and integrated downlights to really show off the merch as they’ve become the social magnets of the home.”

The result is greater attention is being paid to materiality, from the rough texture of brick, to the reflective surfaces of Venetian plaster and Pandamo-finished micro cement, which Ghoniem used on a recent project with Four Pillars Laboratory in Surry Hills.

A mix of materials creates a genuinely inviting space at Four Pillars Laboratory, design by YSG Studio

A good lighting design is key to tying the whole look together, as well as complying with the necessary OH&S requirements.

“Interestingly, the role (of lighting) in both resi and hospo spaces is becoming more aligned,” she says. “We’re all after less bright and more introspective lighting. We’re even staging home kitchens now with key focuses on beautiful stone surfaces or joinery details. 

“I’m all up for immortalising moods and lighting plays a key role in stirring them so that spaces never feel brand new and instead seem layered by experiences – the patinas of time.”

Celebrated UK designer Tom Dixon visited Australia and New Zealand in March to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his design studio. He has been closely observing changes in the way we live, work and dine out for more than a decade, as tech advances allowed us to work remotely and, in turn, shaped what we expected from public and private interior spaces. 

“I noticed the evolution 12 or 13 years ago at Shoreditch House in London, which was for daytime networking and night time entertaining, so we did a design which was always intended to be adaptable,” he says. “As wireless communication became more common, people started taking club memberships (there) to create a basis for their office because they preferred to work in a group setting rather than be in an office. It’s somewhere they could get good service, decent food and where they could bleed work into play.”

UK designer Tom Dixon says the lines between home an office have blurred

Dixon designed the lobby and Market Hall of Sydney’s Quay Quarter Tower, which last year was named World Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival. He says the greatest design differences between residential and hospitality design are the number of ‘clients’ to consider.

“It was quite challenging to predict with Quay Quarter Tower, mainly because they didn’t know who the tenants would be to begin with,” he says. “They didn’t know the level of security that would be required so we were always trying to make it a bit flexible and neutral enough to accommodate a range of people. It’s always complicated with those public/private interactions but it was never going to be a fixed use, static design.”

Tom Dixon collaborated with top chef Assaf Granit to create the Coal Office Restaurant, which offers an intimate dining experience

Now, he says, all interior spaces, whether they are homes, restaurants, hotels or offices are required to provide greater flexibility, both in terms of functionality, as well as design.

“It doesn’t matter whether it is work, hotels or home environments, everybody is being forced to use spaces in multiple ways than before COVID,” Dixon says. “Home is interesting because it became partly school, partly office during the day, so it had to become a lot more adaptable. 

“COVID has put a lot of pressure on home and removed pressure from the office, so that it is more adaptable and less formal and there’s less of a division of space.”

Directors of award-winning design and architecture studio Luchetti Krelle, Rachel Luchetti and Stuart Krelle chose early on to focus their practice on hospitality design to stretch their creativity, but in recent years there’s been increasing interest from an unexpected quarter.

“We didn’t do a lot of residential because too many of our clients wanted to play it safe and consider (their property’s) resale value,” Luchetti. “Under those circumstances, you can’t put your personality into the space or enjoy that aspect of going all out. But now that we focus on hospitality, we get so many enquiries from people who have been to a restaurant we have designed asking if we will work on their house. 

“People want to go out on a limb in residential design as well.”

Stuart Krelle and Rachel Luchetti moved into hospitality design to avoid playing it safe

The pair are responsible for a number of interior design fit-outs in NSW and Victoria, including Tattersalls Armidale, Ovolo Hotel South Yarra, Bathers Pavilion Restaurant at Balmoral,  Matinee cafe in Marrickville and Redbird Restaurant in inner city Redfern.

Luchetti also points to COVID for the growing numbers of homeowners looking to replicate the moody, layered looks of restaurants, bars and cafes as the opportunities to go out diminished and everyone focused on their residential spaces. 

“You want that sense of escape and, for a lot of people, that was where the residential boom to make your home a sanctuary came from,” she says. “People started looking for bigger places and getting that work/life balance, entertaining at home became big again.”

Designed by Luchetti Krelle, The Ovolo at South Yarra is a deep dive into colour, pattern and carefully crafted lighting

Private spaces within a wider residential setting became a priority with everyone at home together for longer periods of time. And with travel on hold, demand increased for hotel-like experiences at home.

“There’s two schools of thought with hotel design,” Luchetti says. “One of them is that you want it to be more like a home and the other is that it should be completely like nothing you have at home.

“People are looking for that calm, clutter free environment that you can’t achieve at home.” 

More: ysg.studio; luchettikrelle.com; tomdixon.net 

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Property Council of Australia backs built-to-rent model to tackle housing crisis

Build-to-rent housing could deliver 150,000 new homes over a 10-year period, a new study released by the Property Council of Australia has revealed.

The report, commissioned by the Property Council and conducted by Ernst & Young over a five-month period to April 4 this year, showed that built-to-rent housing in Australia is now worth $16.8 billion but had the potential to become a $290 billion sector with the creation of 350,000 new apartments.

However, the report said a ‘viable’ market in Australia would likely require capital investment from foreign investors.

“The Government is to be commended for taking an interest in the Build to Rent sector, through the National Housing Accord and beyond,” the report said. “However, despite the numerous pilot projects, a viable market that is liquid enough to meet demand is still not realistic in Australia. 

“In order to create a viable market, capital investment is required which is likely originated from overseas foreign investors in the short to medium-term. As such, Australia needs to remove barriers to entry to allow the flow of foreign capital and the creation of a liquid and viable investment proposition.”

Among the report’s recommendations are offering incentives to local and international investors through tax breaks, allowing a 15 percent managed investment trust withholding tax rate for foreign investors and addressing the regulatory barriers for domestic Superfund investors.

Property Council of Australia chief executive Mike Zorbas said the build-to-rent was a key tool to addressing Australia’s housing crisis in the coming years.

“With a 79,300-home deficit to 2033, Australia needs better planning, more land supply, proper housing targets and a national strategy on build-to-rent and purpose-built student accommodation,” Mr Zorbas said.

“The potential to create 150,000 homes over the next 10 years with just one asset class shows build-to-rent is about as close to a housing policy silver bullet as they come.

He said Australia faces a worsening housing affordability crisis with State Governments missing their housing targets and planning systems failing to keep up. Supporting a build-to-rent model would also ease housing affordability pressures, Mr Zorba said.

“More supply means downward pressure on the cost of renting and buying, and people who live in build-to-rent housing will enjoy the benefits of professionally managed properties, good locations, superior amenities and long-term security of tenure,” he said. 

A relatively new model of housing in Australia, the NSW Department of Planning describes built to rent as “large-scale, purpose-built rental housing that is held in single ownership and professionally managed”. It’s a popular, long established model of housing in Europe where it made up one fifth of commercial housing in 2020, according to Canstar.

The Ernst & Young report said the Australian model should target Millennials and Generation Z, with a focus on young single and couple households.

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Older Adults Are Obsessed With These Five Tech Topics

The residents of a retirement community in the heart of Amish country are proving what experts on ageing have been saying for years: Older adults are as keen on new technologies as anyone else.

Willow Valley Communities, a 2,600-resident campus in Lancaster, Pa., has a tech centre staffed by volunteers. People can drop in for tech help or get their computers fixed. It also has an active computer club and an Apple products group that offer resident-taught classes.

The challenges of the pandemic accelerated tech adoption among older adults who, initially, just needed ways to communicate with far-flung loved ones. People ages 50 and older each spent an average of $912 on technology last year, up from $394 in 2019, according to the AARP.

But barriers remain as older Americans go beyond the video call. There is a lack of training programs and a concern that products aren’t always designed for an ageing populace, the organisation says.

Approximately 2,600 retirees live at Willow Valley Communities in Lancaster, Pa. PHOTO: MICHELLE GUSTAFSON FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

At Willow Valley, many of the residents are focused on technology that can keep them active but won’t open them up to scams or frauds.

“Older adults aren’t into tech for tech’s sake,” says Jeff Weiss, chief executive of Age of Majority, a consulting firm that helps companies market to older adults. “For them to want to use and adopt technology, there has to be a practical reason.”

During my conversations with ageing experts and Willow Valley residents, these five topics came up again and again:

Health wearables

Wearable devices for tracking health and fitness are the hottest technology among older adults, according to leaders at several aging-tech organisations and companies. The AARP says 28% of older Americans own a wearable and 77% of those people use it daily.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people ages 65 and older need at least 150 minutes a week of moderate to intense activity, such as brisk walking, as well as strength and balance exercises.

Trish Macvaugh, a 76-year-old Willow Valley resident, began swimming competitively three years ago. She uses her Apple Watch Series 6 to log her heart rate and more particular stats, too. There’s her “swolf” score, the number of strokes taken plus the time it takes to swim a certain length, and her “VO2 max,” the maximum amount of oxygen she takes in during intense exercise.

Ms. Macvaugh, who began swimming competitively three years ago, tracks her heart rate, strokes and oxygen level on her Apple Watch Series 6. MICHELLE GUSTAFSON FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

“I can compare all of that to what I was doing a month ago, and it’s really encouraging to see how much I’m improving,” says Ms. Macvaugh, who is planning to compete in her second National Senior Games this summer.

A retired professor of English and women’s studies and mother of two, she also uses her Apple Watch to track her walking steadiness, as well as her performance when lifting weights and using the elliptical machine.

For tech advice, she turns to fellow resident Susan Culbertson, a 76-year-old retired computer-software trainer. Last fall, Ms. Culbertson created classes at Willow Valley to teach others how to use Apple products. The classes have gotten so popular, they’ve occasionally run out of seats for people in the conference room where they take place.

Using the iPhone’s Health app and tracking Apple Watch metrics—beyond just step counting—are top subjects. “People want to stay fit as long as possible,” Ms. Culbertson says.

Home assistants

Many residents at Willow Valley use voice-activated home assistants such as Amazon Echo and Google Nest Audio. They’re rising in popularity among older adults across the country, with one in three older adults owning one. Approximately 60% of the older adults who own a home assistant use it daily, the AARP says.

As with other age groups, older adults use home assistants largely to play music, ask questions, check weather or traffic and set alarms or timers.

Streaming services

Ms. Culbertson says that Willow Valley residents are very interested in streaming movies and shows and that many residents no longer watch network television. She recently taught a class on how to use Apple TV.

Older adults are fuelling the growth in video-streaming and subscribing to multiple services, including Netflix, Hulu and HBO Max.

They’re also combining their interest in streaming content with their interest in fitness. Older Adults Technology Services from AARP, a nonprofit that teaches tech to older adults, streams free fitness classes via Zoom. Its stretch classes have been wildly popular, says OATS Executive Director Tom Kamber.

Password protection

Al Williams, president of Willow Valley’s 845-member computer club, says password protection has been a hot topic among older people since news broke that the password manager LastPass was hacked.

Al Williams, head of Willow Valley’s computer club, advises residents to protect their accounts with strong passwords. PHOTO: MICHELLE GUSTAFSON FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Mr. Williams, an 83-year-old retired engineer, recently gave a presentation on choosing strong passwords and using password managers. (My colleague Nicole Nguyen says physical security keys—little dongles that you plug into a USB port or tap on your phone when logging into an account—offer even more protection.)

A recent poll from Age of Majority found that only 37% of people ages 55 and older use a password manager.

Scam prevention

Older adults have fallen prey to all kinds of scams conducted online and by phone.

OATS from AARP offers free online classes for older adults who want to burnish their digital skills, including one later this month on how to protect your personal information online.

Some of Ms. Culbertson’s Apple classes have been so popular, they’ve run out of seats. PHOTO: MICHELLE GUSTAFSON FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Mr. Williams says Willow Valley residents are interested in this, too. He plans to give a “Scammers and other invasive species” presentation to teach people to recognise social engineering.

Teaching tech to a span of older adults, ranging from 55 to over 90, requires a certain skill. “The main thing we have to do,” he says, “is to talk about tech in terms of solving a problem, not as a lecture.”

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World Bank Warns of Lost Decade for Global Economy

Over the past year, governments around the world have announced tax breaks, subsidies and new laws in a bid to accelerate investment, combat climate change and expand their workforces.

That might not be enough.

The World Bank is warning of a “lost decade” ahead for global growth, as the war in Ukraine, the Covid-19 pandemic and high inflation compound existing structural challenges.

The Washington, D.C.-based international lender says that “it will take a herculean collective policy effort to restore growth in the next decade to the average of the previous one.” Three main factors are behind the reversal in economic progress: an ageing workforce, weakening investment and slowing productivity.

“Across the world, a structural growth slowdown is under way: At current trends, the global potential growth rate—the maximum rate at which an economy can grow without igniting inflation—is expected to fall to a three-decade low over the remainder of the 2020s,” the World Bank said.

Potential growth was 3.5% in the decade from 2000 to 2010. It dropped to 2.6% a year on average from 2011 to 2021, and will shrink further to 2.2% a year from 2022 to 2030, the bank said. About half of the slowdown is attributable to demographic factors.

The latest alarm bells from the World Bank about the global economy come in the wake of the U.S.’s passing the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes hundreds of billions in incentives and funding for clean energy, as well as a law to ratchet up investments in semiconductors. In response, the European Union is relaxing its rules on government tax breaks and other benefits for clean-tech companies.

Meantime, major economies are trying to boost their workforce numbers, often in the face of steep resistance. In France, protesters responded violently to President Emmanuel Macron’s overhaul of the country’s pension system, while China’s shrinking population has prompted local governments there to offer cash rewards and longer maternity leaves to boost births.

These efforts so far might be too little, too late. Weakness in growth could be even more pronounced if financial crises erupt in major economies and trigger a global recession, the World Bank report cautions. The warning comes just weeks after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank sparked turmoil in the U.S. and European banking sectors.

Questions surrounding global growth prospects will be in the air in Washington, D.C., alongside the blooming cherry blossoms at the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank from April 10 to 16.

Policy makers and central-bank officials will join economists from around the world to discuss topics including inflation, supply chains, global trade fragmentation, artificial intelligence and human capital.

Earlier this year, the World Bank sharply lowered its short-term growth forecast for the global economy, citing persistently high inflation that has elevated the risk for a worldwide recession. It expects global growth to slow to 1.7% in 2023. Other organisations, such as the International Monetary Fund and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington-based think tank, expect global GDP growth to expand a more robust 2.9% in 2023.

This isn’t the first time the World Bank has warned of a lost decade. In 2021, the lender said the Covid-19 pandemic raised the prospect owing to lower trade and investment caused by uncertainty over the pandemic. It issued similar warnings after the 2008 financial crisis. Global growth from 2009 to 2018 averaged 2.8% a year, compared with 3.5% in the prior decade.

The World Bank identifies a number of challenges conspiring to push down global growth: weak investment, slow productivity growth, restrictive trade measures such as tariffs and the continuing negative effects—such as learning losses from school closures—because of the pandemic.

It said pro-growth policies would help. Measures to boost labor-force participation among discouraged workers and women can help reverse the negative trend in labor force growth from an older population and lower birthrates, according to the World Bank.

Some view the World Bank’s projection for a lost decade as too pessimistic. Harvard University economist Karen Dynan said that ageing populations in nearly every part of the world will be a drag on global growth, but she was more optimistic on raising productivity—output per worker.

“I expect, outside the demographic effects, output per person to look a lot like it did before the pandemic,” she said.

“The World Bank is right to draw concern to the possibility of a lost decade in sub-Saharan Africa, in Central America, in South Asia—an awful lot of human beings are at risk or are facing very grim situations,” said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“But from a global GDP outlook, or even a global population outlook, most of the major emerging markets along with most of the Group of 20 essentially are doing pretty well,” Mr. Posen said. He pointed to economic resilience in Europe and emerging markets in recent years, even as the Federal Reserve has sharply raised interest rates.

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Cost of renting continues to rise in Australia

The cost of renting in Australia is continuing to climb according to new data released today.

PropTrack’s Market Insight report reveals a significant increase for all dwellings over the first quarter of 2023, up 2 percent to a median of $500 per week.

National figures reveal house rents have increased to a median of $530 per week while weekly rent on units now sits at $480. That represents a year-on-year increase of 10.4 percent for houses and 11.1 percent for units.

Unsurprisingly, renters in Australia’s capitals were hardest hit, up 4 percent on last quarter and 13 percent higher year on year. The ACT and regional South Australia were the only areas where rents remained steady over the past quarter.

The data follows on from yesterday’s announcement by the RBA not to increase interest rates, the first time it has decided to pause an increase in the cash rate since May 2022. Research released by the RBA last month in its Renters, Rent Inflation and Renter Stress report suggested there was little relief in sight for renters battling higher levels of rent inflation. While the rental market has traditionally been dominated by younger people, the RBA research found that that is no longer the case.

“Renting has always been more common among younger households; around half of all heads of renter households are between 25 and 44 years of age,” the RBA report said. “However, the share of older households renting has risen over time, and single older women are the fastest growing group in public housing.”

Author of the PropTrack report, senior economist Paul Ryan, said while regional growth has slowed following significant growth during COVID, conditions for renters remain ‘extremely tight’, particularly in capital cities. This is expected to continue to drive rents higher in the coming months. 

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The New Rules of Layoffs

When McDonald’s Corp. said it would temporarily close its U.S. offices as it conducts layoffs at the burger chain, it brought renewed attention to a debate swirling inside HR departments: What is the best way to let people go?

The question is taking on urgency as more U.S. companies, from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Amazon.com Inc., move to shed staff in a wave of layoffs that is heavily concentrated on white-collar jobs.

When it comes to carrying out those cuts, companies employ a range of approaches designed to minimise the pain and disruption of a difficult process.

Here are six of the questions employers face.

All at once or a little at a time?

Many companies grapple with whether to make one sweeping layoff or do a series of smaller cuts. Both carry risks.

At a time when employers still face challenges filling positions, large job cuts can lead companies to inadvertently cut key units or people, executives say.

Yet, taking it slowly to give a company time to assess its financial situation can take a human toll, creating a prolonged period of anxiety and instability inside an organisation. Amazon.com has enacted more job cuts than expected in recent weeks, announcing last month that it would cut 9,000 more corporate jobs following earlier layoffs.

Face time or FaceTime?

Bosses long believed delivering the bad news face-to-face was the more humane approach. Covid-19 changed the equation. While many workers are being called back to the office, at least part time, full office attendance remains rare. Some executives are now asking themselves whether it is actually easier—and more humane—for employees to learn about a layoff on Zoom versus in-person.

“It almost seems cruel to ask someone to commute into the office just to let them go,” said Andy Challenger, senior vice president at outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

Midweek or Friday?

Just as with in-person firings, the conventional wisdom was Friday was the best day to carry out a layoff. That gave employees the weekend to process the news and plan their next steps.

That thinking has shifted. Many employers now see a midweek announcement as more humane, according to Lorna Hagen, a longtime chief people officer. A layoff on a Wednesday, Ms. Hagen said, can give employees time to talk to HR representatives or benefits providers during business hours in the ensuing days.

It’s not you—it’s me

One mistake managers continue to make, HR professionals say, is to tell employees how hard it is to let them go. “That just hits people the wrong way,” said Mr. Challenger. “It’s not about you.” The latest wave of layoffs often has felt like a competition among CEOs over who could craft the best apology.

Many executives have turned to lengthy memos to explain why they resorted to layoffs. Some of those notes look “suspiciously similar” across different companies, said Paul A. Argenti, professor of corporate communication at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He recommends that managers be as transparent as possible with employees about the health of a business so that no one is surprised when layoffs are announced.

Multiple months of pay, or less?

The size of exit packages is also up for debate. At the very least, companies should give laid-off employees a month of severance pay, corporate advisers say, though a number of employers have offered more. When Salesforce Inc. said in January that it would lay off employees, Marc Benioff, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, told workers that those in the U.S. would receive a minimum of nearly five months of pay, health insurance and other benefits.

Some smaller companies have received pushback from employees for not accelerating stock-vesting dates or for issuing severance packages that some saw as underwhelming. HR advisers recommend that companies be as generous as possible with exit packages. In an era when employees can easily sound off on a company even when they are being fired, it is also a best practice to develop a severance policy that can be defended.

OK, now who goes?

One of the last, toughest parts of any downsizing: determining who should be let go. The process of developing a layoff list is complicated and can stretch for weeks, with department heads and managers often debating which employees to eliminate. Seniority once guided layoffs, though it is now far more common for companies to assess skills over tenure, and to heavily consider someone’s recent performance.

HR officials will then often scrub a list, wanting to ensure that a company isn’t disproportionately laying off workers over the age of 40, or unfairly targeting minorities and others. Even with much preparation, many veteran HR leaders say layoffs can be messy. “There is no good way to do this,” said Gregory DeLapp, who spent much of his career in HR at the steel and materials manufacturer Carpenter Technology Corp.

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Future Returns: The Banking Crisis Didn’t Scare Off Alternative Investors

Investing for high-net-worth clients can be a bit of a high-wire act because they can have significant amounts of money tied up in complex alternative investments. When the panic started with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March, wealth manager Tom Ruggie was relieved that none of his clients were directly invested.

“We got lucky there,” says Ruggie, a certified financial planner and author who is based in central Florida. “But when it came to Credit Suisse, we had a little bit of a scare.”

Ruggie’s firms—a family office business called Destiny Wealth Partners and a financial planning firm called Ruggie Wealth Management—did some work with the troubled financial institution on debt obligations. It turned out that all of the contracts were completed, but if Credit Suisse had failed, Ruggie and his clients would have lost a lot of money because the notes would not have been paid back.

Investors who have money in private equity, hedge funds, and direct investments in start-ups are used to taking on a lot of risk and have the financial capacity to absorb it. Ruggie points to an EY study that a third of those with assets above US$250,000 hold some alternatives in their portfolios, including 81% of ultra-high net worth clients with more than US$30 million. Scares don’t happen often, but when they do, “it’s an eye-opening event,” Ruggie says.

Still, rather than run to safety when things turn sour, Ruggie’s clients are more likely to go back and do it again. “They are usually willing to take risks when everyone else is running for cover,” he says. “When you have something come up, like the current banking crisis or the situation in 2008, a lot of people psychologically don’t do well with uncertainty. But the savvy investors, they look at it as an opportunity.”

Here’s where Ruggie says high-net-worth investors want to put their money today.

How Much Risk?

Not all high-net-worth investing is deep in alternatives. Ruggie says he divides client money into three pools: short-term money in fixed income, mid-range money in traditional equity investments like mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, and then long-term money in private investments.

To decide the ratio, he says “it’s a statistical correlation of how much money you have to how much you need and for how long. There’s no cookie-cutter answer.”

Some clients don’t put more than 10% of their net worth into non-traditional alternatives. Ruggie’s personal portfolio is pushing 40% alternatives, he says. Much of that is tied up in sports memorabilia—mostly an extensive baseball card collection—and some collectible wines, along with direct investments in companies.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a bridge too far—“I personally can’t see the advantage of investing in something like that, and never recommend for a client to do so,” Ruggie says.

As for cryptocurrency, Ruggie has dabbled, but just for the experience. “I wanted to learn,” he says. “I did quite well, but when clients came to us for advice, our guidance was that it’s off our path. Our client base is more concerned about long-term performance than the gambling aspect of investing.”

How Much Capital is Required?

Ruggie says direct investments in companies can start as low as US$25,000. These are the opportunities that are the most interesting to his clients right now, especially technology-based start-ups.

Some clients also take a step back and put their money into private-equity that then pools investments and finds companies worth investing in. Those typically require putting in at least US$250,000 and the purchaser has to be qualified, with a net worth of US$5 million net. Ruggie’s clients also invest in hedge funds, real estate, and collectibles.

Of these investments, hedge funds are the most liquid. There’s usually a lock-in period of a year, but then money can typically be withdrawn with 30-days notice.

Private equity has much less flexibility. “I tell people to basically anticipate no liquidity at all,” Ruggie says. “My mindset on private equity is that this is long-term money.”

The same goes for most direct investments in companies, which aside from the potential to sell stakes on the secondary market, there’s no ability to get cash out unless the company goes public and the shares appreciate.

The Potential Gain?

The main reason for investing in alternatives is that the potential upside of these investments is unlimited.That’s what makes it worth the risk. The other reason is that many high-net-worth clients have money to put on the line.

“What is excess? It’s a correlation between what you have and what you need,” says Ruggie. “Everyone’s definition of rich is different.”

In a year like 2022, advisers like Ruggie have had to go to clients with bad news about losses for the year and say, they may have outperformed the market but still lost 10% or whatever the number. But for Ruggie, that’s a temporary situation with paper losses.

The rest of the speech goes something like this: “It’s my belief—backed up by my personal investments—that what we’re doing with alternatives is going to outperform the market with statistically less risk than the market over time. It will catch up.”

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Interest rates hold for April following RBA meeting

The RBA has decided to keep interest rates on hold following a meeting of the board this afternoon. In a widely anticipated move and amid growing pressure from government and key players in the housing sector, the Reserve Bank of Australia has broken a 10-month streak of consecutive rises in the cash rate, leaving interest rates at 3.6 percent.

In a statement released earlier today, governor of monetary policy at the RBA, Philip Lowe, reaffirmed last month’s assertion that ‘monetary policy operates at a lag’ but said it was likely that inflation in Australia has already peaked, with further falls expected over the course of this year and next.

Inflation hit a high of 8.4 percent in December 2022 but fell slightly in January to 7.4 percent and again in February to 6.8 percent.
“Goods price inflation is expected to moderate over the months ahead due to global developments and softer demand in Australia,” Mr Lowe said in a statement. 

“Meanwhile, rents are increasing at the fastest rate in some years, with vacancy rates low in many parts of the country. The prices of utilities are also rising quickly. 

“The central forecast is for inflation to decline this year and next, to around 3 percent in mid-2025. Medium-term inflation expectations remain well anchored, and it is important that this remains the case.”

The news has been received positively by the building and property sectors.

Master Builders Australia CEO Denita Wawn said the decision to pause a further rise was welcome.

“Interest rate rises coupled with rising inflation have forced building and construction activity and new homes sales to slow sharply over the last few months,” she said in a statement.

 “A strong building industry is the foundation of a strong economy. The close interdependence between the health of the construction industry and the economy’s fate is clear to see in the current environment.

“The RBA has rightfully recognised the negative impacts of rapidly rising interest rates on accelerating rental prices and construction activity.”

CoreLogic research director, Tim Lawless, said the decision would boost confidence in the property market ahead of further falls in the rate of inflation.

“An increased level of certainty around the rate hiking cycle should flow through to an improvement in consumer sentiment, which has been stuck at levels seen during the worst of the Global Financial Crisis and early phase of the pandemic,” he said. 

“We know that consumer sentiment and housing market activity have a close relationship, so any upwards movement in spirits could see more buyers and sellers returning to the market, although we would need to see sentiment lift materially before returning to average levels.”

 

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Investing in the New-Energy Economy

The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy—a core theme in values-based portfolios for almost two decades—has been catapulted from a niche investment theme to the mainstream thanks to the passage of the most significant climate action legislation on record.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed in August, is a profound inflection point in the evolution of climate policy that puts U.S. muscle behind the global push toward carbon-reduction goals. The bill, which dedicates $369 billion to climate provisions, is likely to elevate investor confidence in the clean-energy theme and open the door to new investment opportunities.

“The IRA will provide a huge boost to companies and projects, both proven and emerging, that enable decarbonisation at scale,” says Justina Lai, chief impact officer at Wetherby Asset Management in San Francisco. “It provides much more policy certainty to companies and funds already investing in the energy transition and incentivises laggards to catch up.”

The new legislation requires all emissions-producing sectors, such as transportation, agriculture, construction, and utilities, to reduce greenhouse gases, and provides a host of tax incentives to companies and individuals to make environmentally friendly choices, such as buying an electric vehicle and installing solar panels.

Lai expects more innovation in renewable energy, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and batteries, along with nascent technologies in areas such as green hydrogen, direct air capture, carbon capture and storage, energy storage, and sustainable fuels.

A goal to have net-zero carbon emissions by 2050—an agreed-upon target by many nations and the global scientific community—isn’t just a technology investment story. The carbon-reduction theme is intersecting with agriculture, construction, transportation, finance, and other industries.

In Kent, England, InspiraFarms creates modular cold rooms and packing-houses for agricultural use to reduce reliance on diesel generators and reduce food waste. Berlin-based Betteries upcycles electric-vehicle batteries and incorporates them in clean-power systems. In Lexington, Ky., Rubicon has developed software to help waste-management companies, businesses, and municipalities reduce carbon emissions.

“This is about investing across the entire value chain of this transition,” says Ian Schaeffer, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank.

While a major area of innovation is in slowing climate change, another is in addressing the needs of communities already struggling with the impact of rising global temperatures.

Source Global, a Scottsdale, Ariz., start-up, creates new solar-powered technology that extracts water vapour out of the air to make drinking water, eliminating the need for fossil-fuel-dependent methods for delivering drinking water to communities whose water supply is drying up due to climate changes.

“The beauty of the Inflation Reduction Act is that it opens the door to climate adaptation in underserved communities. That creates massive opportunity,” says Cody Friesen, Source’s founder and CEO.

J.P. Morgan’s Schaeffer says investors should be looking toward the primary enablers of the transition to clean energy, and points to two important themes: green buildings and semiconductors.

“Buildings account for a staggering amount of carbon emissions,” he says. “We think there’s opportunity in sustainable construction materials, efficient air systems, incorporating smart systems, and digital infrastructure.”

Semiconductors are essential to modern technology and will play a big role in the transition of the automotive industry from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles, Schaeffer says. “This will require more powerful and efficient semiconductors. The demand for these will skyrocket in coming years.”

Opportunities are global in scope, and suited for long-term investors, he says. “This transition will be a long and bumpy but ultimately inevitable process likely to take us through the middle half of this century.”

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Would Life Be Better if You Worked Less?

Stephen E. Griffith was working up to 80 hours a week. He was frustrated by the bureaucracy of mounting meetings and craved time with family. So in 2021, he left his thriving practice at a Kansas City, Mo., hospital, and decided to work less.

The neurosurgeon now puts in about one-half to two-thirds of the hours he used to, picking up temporary assignments through a medical-staffing agency, sometimes traveling as far as Oregon. He’s still a doctor and still heals people. But he also goes on midmorning jogs with his wife. He drives his kids to music class. He’s taken more vacations in recent months—to Hawaii, Grand Cayman, Mexico—than during entire years of his past life as a hospital-employed physician.

“Time is a currency,” the 47-year-old says. “Gone are the days where you sign on the dotted line and you can be there for just as long as they tell you to be.”

People with all sorts of jobs seem to agree. They’re reconsidering their relationship to work, how much of their time it swallows, and making changes. In February 2023, 21.9 million Americans were working part time voluntarily, up from 20.7 million the prior year. Meanwhile, some participants in a four-day workweek experiment in the U.K. say there is no amount of money that could make them go back. Lawmakers stateside have taken notice, proposing legislation that would cut the standard workweek here to 32 hours.

It’s hard not to look around and wonder: Would my life be better if I worked less?

“You have this sense of, you’ve taken control of your life,” says Kevin Richardson, who works about 25 hours from Monday through Thursday for a small creative agency. “You see the work as part of your life, rather than the centre.”

Newfound freedom

Dr. Richardson shifted to part-time freelance work last year at the behest of his wife, Lindsay King, who was already down to 15 to 20 hours a week. Freed from the cost and stress of finding paid child care, they can swap who’s in charge of their one- and four-year-old boys. They’ve even been able to relocate to international spots for months at a time.

Speaking recently from a house set amid olive and orange groves in Kalamata, Greece, Dr. King told me she can’t see herself returning to full-time work, even when her children are older.

“I would just have many other things I want to do with my life,” she says, citing travel, volunteering, gardening and long-distance running.

Not that it’s picture perfect. The couple hasn’t amassed enough savings to buy a house in Texas, their home base, and they know they work at the whims of the organisations for which they freelance. Their gigs could dry up at any time.

‘Why did we all work five days?’

For plenty of workers, the possibility of putting in fewer hours simply isn’t an option because they need the money—especially amid inflation—or because of the type of jobs they do.

Some people working fewer hours, including Dr. Richardson, told me they make the same money as before. But contractors are on their own for health insurance and miss out on company benefits like paid time off.

Other workers take big pay cuts to shift to part-time hours only to contend with pressure to pop open their laptops on their day off anyway, or find they’re cut off from key company discussions and promotions.

The answer could be entire organisations where everyone’s putting in fewer hours, says Brendan Burchell, a sociology professor at the University of Cambridge who’s studied how work hours affect psychological well-being.

Humans need work to give structure to our days, to bestow purpose and self-esteem, he says. But we don’t need that much of it. A 2019 paper from Prof. Burchell and several co-authors found that people performing one to eight hours of paid work a week got the same mental health boost—less anxiety, less depression—as those who work 44 to 48 hours a week.

In the future, “We’ll look back and think, why did we all work five days?” Prof. Burchell says.

The part-time business model

Employing mostly part-time workers has helped Sam McKenna’s sales-consulting business be nimble and save money.

“We don’t have people who we’re paying 40 hours who only need 20 hours to get their jobs done,” the Washington, D.C.-area resident says. “We don’t pay overly competitive salaries. We don’t have health benefits.”

And yet, job candidates flood the team with inquiries each month, Ms. McKenna says, even when the company doesn’t have openings. Before the pandemic, it was mostly stay-at-home moms, as well as military and expat spouses who would express interest. These days, Ms. McKenna says she hears from high-powered executives at major consulting and financial-services companies who crave meaningful work, but want a slower pace.

Ms. McKenna initially envisioned herself working part time, too. She left her job at LinkedIn to launch the business in late 2019 with a goal of making half the money she had previously, in half the time she used to spend working.

“I wanted balance,” she says. But as clients kept coming, she swiftly ramped up to 60 hours a week. Keeping up with demand took, well, more work. “You can only do so much part-time.”

Peak performance

Many have found their long hours give diminishing returns.

A full-time employee earlier in her career, environmental engineer Megan Neiderhiser remembers loitering by the water cooler, chatting with colleagues. Now, working 30 hours a week, but aiming for the same revenue targets as her full-time colleagues, she bookmarks every hour for specific goals and doesn’t waste her 40-person team’s time with excess meetings.

Fridays are for yoga classes and playing with her kids, affording her time to think and relax. The Salt Lake City resident says she has better ideas and a better attitude come Monday.

“I’m just convinced,” she says, “this is my top performance.”

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High density housing approvals fall in February

Falling building approvals for higher density dwellings is contributing to the rental crisis, chief economist at Master Builders Australia said today.

Shane Garrett’s comments follow the release of Australian Bureau of Statistic data showing high density approvals had fallen by -9.5 percent during February. He said declining approvals in this sector will put further pressure on renters, as well as first homebuyers.

“The volume of new approvals on the higher density side is now at its lowest in over a decade,” Mr Garrett said. “The output of new higher density homes has been depressed since before the pandemic. 

 “Inadequate volumes of new supply are contributing to growing difficulties in our rental market. Rents are currently rising at their fastest pace in over a decade.”

Master Builders Australia CEO Denita Wawn said the Federal Government needed to take ‘necessary steps’ to ensure there were no further interest rate rises.

“There is no silver bullet; this will take a concerted effort by all levels of government working in collaboration with industry,” said Ms Wawn.

The seasonally adjusted falls in February are part of a downward trend in the high density sector, which has seen a -45.9 percent drop over the year. This compares with a 11.3 percent uptick in approvals for private sector housing, seasonally adjusted. This sector is down -13.6 percent of the yearly period.

Tasmania recorded the highest increase in overall approvals, up 122.1 percent in February, followed by South Australia at 28.5 percent, NSW (14.0 percent), and Victoria (8.5 percent), while Queensland (-13.7 percent) and Western Australia (-6.4 percent) decreased. Approvals for private sector houses rose in all states.

 

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Interest rates could fall by the end of the year, major lender predicts

Mortgage payments could ease as soon as the end of 2023, according to predictions by Australia’s largest mortgage holder.

Economists at the Commonwealth Bank expect rates to peak at 3.85 percent (0.25 percent above current levels) in May before easing off towards the end of the year. This comes ahead of tomorrow’s meeting of the Reserve Bank of Australia board, which is widely tipped to keep rates on hold for the first time in 10 months.

While the other three major banks – Westpac, ANZ and NAB – are all suggesting rates will not begin to fall until 2024, the CBA and NAB have made the most accurate predictions over the past six months.

Westpac predicts interest rates will peak at 3.85 percent in May, while NAB and ANZ expect two more possible rate rises in May and June, bringing interest rates to a peak of 4.1 percent.

The RBA has been using rises in the cash rate to drive down inflation, which has fallen from a peak of 8.4 percent in December 2022 to 6.8 percent in February, further strengthening the possibility of a pause. 

Property data provider CoreLogic has just released its Home Value Index, revealing national home values increased by 0.6 percent in March, the first month-on-month rise since April 2022. Research director at CoreLogic, Tim Lawless, said low stock levels, tight rental conditions and greater demand from overseas migration were the most likely causes.

“Although interest rates are high and there is an expectation the economy will slow through the year, it’s clear other factors are now placing upwards pressure on home prices,” Mr Lawless said.

“Advertised supply has been below average since September last year, with capital city listing numbers ending March almost -20 percent below the previous five-year average.  Purchasing activity has also fallen but not as much as available supply; capital city sales activity was estimated to be roughly -7 percent below the previous five-year average through the March quarter.

“With rental markets this tight, it’s likely we are seeing some spillover from renting into purchasing, although, with mortgage rates so high, not everyone who wants to buy will be able to qualify for a loan.  Similarly, with net overseas migration at record levels and rising, there is a chance more permanent or long-term migrants who can afford to, will skip the rental phase and fast track a home purchase simply because they can’t find rental accommodation.”

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That Style, Again? How Shopping Got So Boring

The maker of Tonka trucks and Lite-Brite normally introduces four new toys a year. Last year, Basic Fun Inc. introduced one.

Manufacturers and retailers of everything from computers to dresses hit pause in the past few years when it came to innovation, the result of pandemic-related upheavals in the design, manufacture and distribution of goods, industry executives said. Shifting consumer demand and the expectation of an economic slowdown also played a role, the executives said.

New merchandise gives shoppers a reason to buy. Without it, sales tend to suffer. Retailers including Best Buy Co. and Gap Inc. said a dearth of new products, styles and colours contributed to lacklustre sales during the recent holiday season.

Now, the race is on to ramp up newness, the executives said. But the work that goes into creating new products often takes months, if not years. And some companies are reluctant to invest in the necessary research and development while economic uncertainty looms.

“The last thing you want to do is spend the money to create and market a new product and have it get stuck in the socio-economic crossfire of Covid, supply-chain disruptions and inflation,” said Basic Fun Chief Executive Jay Foreman. “All these things coming together at the same time means that you have to play it safe.”

Mr. Foreman said Basic Fun is delaying plans to relaunch its Littlest Pet Shop collectible figures until spring 2024 from fall of this year. “We anticipate the supply chain getting back to normal by the middle of this year,” he said. “But we’re still concerned about inflation and a slowdown in consumer spending.”

Gap Chairman and interim CEO Bob Martin said in an interview that a pile-up of excess inventory hindered the company’s ability to innovate.

“You stop leveraging creative strengths, you play it safe, and miss the bigger bets to get back on trend,” he said. Now that the company has worked through its excess inventory, he added, it has more room to devote to spring trends like eyelet and crochet tops at Gap, new suiting styles at Banana Republic, and Old Navy dresses with pockets.

There were 13% fewer new general merchandise items in 2022 compared with 2020, according to market-research firm Circana. The biggest declines were in beauty, footwear, technology, small appliances and toy categories.

Marshal Cohen, Circana’s chief industry adviser, said the decline is unprecedented and the result of several converging factors.

The Covid-19 pandemic radically altered consumption patterns, which forced manufacturers and retailers to pivot quickly to keep up with shifting demand. Supply-chain disruptions created first a scarcity of goods, and then a glut. With excess merchandise clogging shelves, retailers were unable to bring in fresh goods. Remote work made collaboration to dream up new ideas more difficult.

“Something as simple as a new flavour, colour or style can create demand,” Mr. Cohen said. “With a decline in newness, we are boring consumers to death.”

When demand for computers, TVs and other electronic gadgets surged, manufacturers focused on producing as much as they could of existing products to address shortages, Jason Bonfig, Best Buy’s chief merchandising officer, said in an interview.

Mr. Bonfig said he is starting to see an improvement in the flow of new products hitting stores, including TVs with larger screens and computers with longer battery life. “Vendors want to get back to growth,” he said. “They know new models are what brings people to our stores.”

Some retailers have acknowledged that the problem rests as much with them as with their suppliers.

“We didn’t have as many choices in women’s tops as we did in the past,” Ed Thomas, CEO of teen-clothing retailer Tilly’s Inc., said in an interview. “Part of that was our problem. We may have been offered styles that we said no to, because we were too gun-shy to take a chance. We had no idea where the economy was going, so we were more conservative in our buying.”

Nordstrom Inc. has set a goal this year of selling through its inventory at a rate 10% faster than last year, to allow it to bring in fresh merchandise more frequently, according to Pete Nordstrom, the department-store chain’s president. “We want our customers to say, ‘Every time I come to Nordstrom there is something new,’” he said.

Retailers said there are more new products hitting stores now that the supply chain is normalising and the excess inventory of past seasons has been cleared out.

But shoppers might not see a big change just yet.

“There is a disconnect between what’s in stores and what’s being shown on the runways and in fashion magazines,” said Lucia Gulbransen, a personal stylist. “You just can’t find the newness and the fashion-forward looks you see on Instagram.”

Some manufacturers said retailers are still too hesitant to pull the trigger on big, unproven bets.

“It’s an all-around risk-averse season,” said David Katz, chief marketing officer of Randa Apparel & Accessories, which makes clothing and accessories for brands ranging from Calvin Klein to Levi Strauss & Co. “There is more pushback than usual on new styles.”

Jackie Ferrari, CEO of clothing manufacturer American Fashion Network LLC, said basics such as T-shirts, tank tops and hoodies now account for about 60% of the assortment at large, mid tier chains, up from the low-50% range in 2019. Rather than adding new silhouettes, retailers are reordering best sellers with new colours and fabrics, she said.

The issue isn’t limited to companies selling consumer goods. Walt Disney Co. CEO Robert Iger recently told investors that the company needed to be careful about which comic-book characters and stories it develops into TV shows and movies from its Marvel Entertainment franchise to ensure “newness.” “Sequels typically work well for us,” Mr. Iger said. “Do you need a third or a fourth, for instance, or is it time to turn to other characters?”

Of course, there are always exceptions. Wide-leg jeans ushered in new clothing styles, including shorter tops and chunkier shoes, and luggage with built-in phone chargers spurred demand for new travel bags. But overall, retailers are still grappling with how to get more newness in front of shoppers, some of the executives said.

Customers are impatient. Robert Smith, a 49-year-old investment manager, said he started searching out smaller, more-unusual clothing brands online after showing up at a networking event wearing the same outfit as another attendee—a black linen shirt and matching shorts that he bought at a big-box chain.

“There isn’t much variety,” said Mr. Smith, who lives in Loves Park, Ill. “If you go to one store, you see the same thing at another store.”

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Paris Votes to Ban E-Scooter Rental Companies

PARIS—People in the French capital have voted to ban electric-scooter rental services from its streets in a hotly debated referendum, a dark signal for an urban transportation market that the city helped pioneer.

Electric-scooter rentals lost in a landslide, with between 86% and 92% of people who participated voting against the services, according to preliminary district tallies released by the city.

Paris officials have said that in the event of an “against” vote, the three companies that pay for contracts to operate in Paris, including the U.S.-based company Lime, would have to yank their fleet of a combined 15,000 e-scooters in the city by Sept. 1.

If the city follows through, it would mark the first time that a major city that had offered contracts for e-scooter rentals in the center of town has made a complete U-turn on its policy, the companies said. It is a blow to scooter companies such as Lime, which had pointed to Paris as an example of how their services could be effectively regulated.

Paris’s regulatory scheme, which automatically limited the top speed of the scooters and required users to use dedicated parking areas or pay fines, has inspired elements of new tender offers or expansions of systems in cities including New York, London and Madrid, said the companies that currently operate in Paris. They also include the Franco-Dutch company Dott and Germany’s Tier Mobility.

The companies didn’t immediately comment on the outcome of the vote.

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Why autumn property listings are on the rise

 Industries like luxury fashion and elite sport are dictated by the seasons, so why not the residential real estate market? Selling homes is considered a science by some in the business who suggest that when you list can have a direct effect on the final price.

Analysis by property portal realestate.com.au’s data group PropTrack reveals there is generally a more profitable time of year to list a home for sale, but ultimately results can vary by region.

The 2021 research isolated the impact of the sale month from other features impacting price and discovered properties which sold in November received the highest average prices. Across Australia, sales in November were almost 6 percent higher than those in January, traditionally the sleepiest month on the real estate calendar. These results also ranked October and December as additionally profitable months.

Spring saturation

The reasoning behind strong spring selling statistics comes down to a mix of human behaviour and mother nature.

Tim Lawless, head of research at property data specialist CoreLogic, says while there is logic to the popularity of spring among sellers it could also just be an established pattern of behaviour Australians have found hard to kick.

“It definitely comes back to sentiment as well as the ability to present a property well. Spring is a time when the weather warms up, people become more active, the grass is greener and flowers start to bloom. So from a property presenting perspective, it’s a logical time to prepare your property for inspections so people can see it in its best possible light,” he says.

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It’s a great theory for houses with gardens, but he admits there is no real reason why apartment listings also ramp up in spring.

“I think it’s probably so deeply ingrained culturally that people don’t necessarily think about some of the logical aspects, because selling a unit wouldn’t be much different from season to season,” he says.

While this boom in the property calendar is often referred to as “spring selling season” Lawless says it could probably be more accurately be described as the “spring listing season”.

“We actually see the number of sales is equally as strong around March as it is in November, which are sort of both seasonal peaks in sales activity” he says. “But for listings, it’s really clear that after winter there’s normally a solid ramp up in the number of newly-listed properties coming onto the market.”

Understanding the real estate calendar

While spring is an active time of year in property, the rest of the calendar is marked by milestones which can make or break the success of a sale. School breaks, long weekends and even major sporting events should be taken into account when a home’s marketing campaign is being created.

“School holidays are relevant, but probably what’s more important would be long weekends, like Easter, or grand final weekends. The most obvious one is the Christmas period when pretty much everything shuts down,” Lawless says. “If you think about the property process, a lot of people need to be around to make a transaction happen. 

“You need buyers and sellers obviously, but also you need the agent, the conveyancer, building inspectors and those individuals or professions may not be operating due to holidays.”

Avoid scheduling your auction over long weekends or major sporting events, like football grand finals when buyer interest is often lower (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

The real estate calendar had its first real shake up in a generation during the pandemic as potential buyers couldn’t leave on holiday or even view interstate homes. 

Auctions moved online, property professionals worked from home and an unprecedented number of buyers bought site unseen. 

As a result, some of those old seasonal selling tropes went out the window.

Bucking the seasonal trend for buyers

Bianca Denham, head of performance at the Ray White Group said bucking the seasonal listing trends could be a valuable move for sellers.

“Even pre pandemic we would train our agents not to fall into the trap of focussing on spring time,” Denham says. 

“Because if sellers have been institutionalised — for lack of a better word — that spring is the best time to sell, then what it creates is actually more competition among listings.”

While there are more properties for sale, that doesn’t necessarily translate into more buyers, she says. 

“Buyers don’t become buyers just because the daffodils are in bloom, they become buyers because something has happened in their life; they’ve got that promotion, finally saved the deposit, or they have a baby on the way,” she says. “Buyers become buyers for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the time of year.” 

Bianca Denham from Ray White says it’s worth looking beyond the traditional spring market to list properties

Alternatively, some agents are testing the water by working against old school traditions. 

“We’re seeing more agents embracing the downtime of summer as an opportunity to sell,” Denham says. “If you look back to a pre pandemic so-called ‘normal’ market then you would have seen it go to sleep over Christmas and January. 

“We’ve found that any agent who makes the concerted effort to list over Christmas is rewarded because there are inspections and they do get offers.” 

She added that vendors who tap into holiday periods could be rewarded with more buyer eyeballs on their listing.

“When people step out of their everyday and go on a break, that’s when they can start dreaming because they’ve got time on their hands. It’s one of our nation’s most-loved pastimes — browsing on real estate portals. We love it even if we’re not actively buying. 

“Not everyone goes away, and some people come from the country to the city, or vice versa, and they start looking at local real estate wherever they go.”

Lawless agrees that savvy sellers should consider just how saturated the market can get at certain periods.

“It’s definitely a factor in decision making. It’s good to know how much competition there’s going to be, or lack thereof,” he says. “So maybe going counter cyclical is a good idea by listing in winter when there’s not as many listings to come up against.”

In the end, do what works for you, he says.

“Your best option is to buy or sell when the timing is right for you rather than trying to time it with the seasons or trying to buy property at the bottom and sell at the top.”