[Podcast] What’s ahead? The post-Covid social trends that will stick, with Simon Kuestenmacher

How has the pandemic re-shaped your life?

It would be very unusual if you hadn’t had some major upheavals over the last couple of years, but what’s going to remain as a long-term trend, a legacy of the lockdowns, and what fads are soon going to be forgotten.

I’m sure many of us would like to forget the last couple of years, but they will be pretty hard to forget.

In fact, it’s likely Covid will leave scars on some of us, how we do things what we feel comfortable with and how we want to live, but Covid has also brought with a couple of positive innovations, it has brought forward a number of trends which were probably going to happen anyway and these will improve our lives.

In today’s show, I want to discuss these because whether you are a property investor, a business owner, or a professional understanding these social trends post-Covid will be critical for your success.

And who better to discuss them with than our regular guest, leading demographer Simon Kuestenmacher, so welcome to today’s show.

How has Covid changed social trends?

As we move into a new world of what some will call Covid normal, what will we look back on as a short-term fad, and what will last forever.

Which trends will last?

Online shopping?

Working from home?

Where do we want to live and how do we want to live?

That’s what I’m going to ask leading demographer Simon Kuestenmacher, director of the Demographics Group because if we understand how the pandemic re-shaped our wish list, not just for housing and property, but for many things in life, it will make us better investors, business people, and entrepreneurs.

Let’s look at a number of social trends that will shape demand and the way we will be living moving forward.

1. Work from home

• Before Covid, just 5% of workers worked from home. During the lockdown, at-home workers approached 50%.
• It’s likely that the trend of working from home will continue moving forward.
• If nothing else, employers and workers will work out hybrid arrangements – workers will be partially remote, partially in-person
• In the longer term, the proportion of the workforce working from home could settle at about the 10-15 per cent mark.

2. The future of the CBD

• There will be a rise of work near home workspaces
• Overall, through the next 2 or 3 years, the area will completely recover
• However, it won’t happen immediately

3. The importance of neighbourhood

• The 20-minute neighbourhood - The ability to work, live, and play all within 20 minutes’ reach is the new gold standard desirable lifestyle.
• COVID created a more intense sense of community

4. Home improvements

• The collective dwell time in the family home has been boosted by the work from home revolution pandemic.
• The greater the dwell time the greater the tendency to invest in the family home with new appliances, technology, furniture, furnishings.

5. Millennials

• These are the children of the Baby Boomers born 1984-2002, now aged 19-37, and who over the next five to six years will push into their late 30s and early 40s
• These upgrades will trigger a surge in demand for family-friendly residential property in the suburbs.

6. Boomers

• born 1946-1964 and who are now aged 62-75.
• They will reinvent this time (65-plus) in the life cycle as the most exciting time of all: kids off their hands, mortgage paid out, health still okay.
• The 2020s are their time to spend the kids’ inheritance and to methodically tick off activities from their ever-expanding bucket list.

6. VESPAs - Virus Escapees Seeking Provincial Australia

• Work from lifestyle regions
• Scootering out of capital cities in search of affordability and serenity in a lifestyle town.

7. FIZOs

• You’ve heard of Fly-in Fly-out or FIFO workers?
• Well, how about Fly-In Zoom-Out or FIZO workers?
• Workers who are remote most of the time, but are required to work in person for at least a couple of events

Links and Resources:

Michael Yardney

Simon Kuestenmacher - Director of Research at The Demographics Group

As our markets move forward why not get the team at Metropole to build you a personalised   Strategic Property Plan – this will help both beginning and experienced investors.

Subscribe to Simon’s YouTube channel here

Read Simon Kuesetenmacher’s blogs on Property Update here.

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Some of our favourite quotes from the show:

“They’re upgraders now, they’ve upgraded homes rather than apartments, and that’s going to create a huge demand for certain sorts of properties in the family-friendly residential suburbs.” – Michael Yardney

“Continuing on with the Vespa analogy, they’re going to be scootering out of the capital cities and moving into the regional areas.” – Michael Yardney

“Those who succeed in life do not think they’re going to fail, they know it.” – Michael Yardney

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