PRESIDENT’S REPORT SEAN YEOMANS HIA President – Hunter 2018 - WHAT A YEAR FOR OUR INDUSTRY Our industry continues to grow in its capacity to deliver and this year has been no exception. As we close in on the end of another region’s residential construction boom. WITH A SUBSTANTIAL year its pleasing to report that we This has been fuelled in part by our APPROVALS PIPELINE, are on track for another record relatively affordable land, diversity of number of homes approved in the housing options, low unemployment, strong COMBINED WITH VERY LOW HIA Hunter region since the global financialconsumer confidence and the government’s LENDING RATES AND crisis (GFC). This is a phenomenal effort andfirst home buyer initiatives. STRONG BUSINESS I congratulate you all on your contribution There are many that are quick to talk CONFIDENCE SHOULD towards this. down our sector of recent, particularly if As we approach 10 years since the one or two indices move slightly in a ENSURE THAT THE SECTOR collapse of Lehmann Brothers and the negative direction. Whilst there are many CONTINUES TO REMAIN culmination of the GFC, it’s timely to looknationwide risks to our sector, manly being aBUOYANT LOCALLY... back at the era post this event, an era further slowdown in inward migration, falling that has represented difficult economic house prices and less investor involvement conditions that the world and Australia arein the market, it’s been pleasing to report locally, that is unless of course we talk still grappling with the ripple effects. that the Hunter has remained relatively ourselves down. Unlike many parts of the country the immune to this. With some elements of our sector, HIA Hunter region has thrived in this post- With a substantial approvals pipeline, particularly the renovations market strongly GFC era. We have fortunately been in an combined with very low lending rates and influenced by consumer sentiment, the economic sweet spot, initially riding the strong business confidence should ensure recent pessimistic edge too many media mining boom and most recently riding the that the sector continues to remain buoyantarticles is not helpful from the perspective of sustaining the positive journey that the Hunters residential construction sector has been on in recent years. Unfortunately in our fast paced media world negative news tends to dominate the headlines. This will be my last report as Hunter President. I would like to thank all the members of the Hunter Regional Executive Committee who work for fellow members on various HIA committees, as well as the HIA staff for their assistance during my term as Hunter President. The strength of HIA has always been the membership, the dedicated HIA staff and volunteers, I look forward to assisting my successor continue to support our wonderful association. Finally, I wish you, your family, friends and colleagues all the best for the holiday season and hope you have a happy, safe and prosperous New Year. P4 BUILDING NEWS ISSUE 5/2018 TNEDISERP