The culture in New Zealand during December is to me as a newcomer to this lovely country (arrived in 2002), fascinating to experience. Everything slowly grinds to a halt, especially when it comes to the maintenance of your day to day finances.
The people are bombarded with enticements on TV, radio and advertisements dropped into letter boxes, to come and spend money that they don’t have on stuff that they really don’t need.
The negative spin off of the frenzy is that the man in the street is coaxed into spending the money he or she has set aside for the rent, car or furniture installments.
Onto the scene come teh poor property managers who now have to chase after the spenddrift tenants for the rent that was not paid after Christmas and New Year. Luckily for our investment owners, they do not have to worry about it as their rent is guaranteed to be paid on time.
After the usual threats or submissions to teh Tenancy Tribunal, teh rent payment situation by the tenants slowly returns to normal by the end of March. My experience is this regard is probably part of a general trend that other business sectors experience and have to cope with.
On the positive side, i do hope that employees will get some kind of Christmas bonus and that it would alleviate the shortage of money. the recent change in the Labour Law where employees can convert some of their excess leave days into cash might also assist tenants but it all depends on the priorities of each individual.
The simple solution is that tenants should be educated to first pay tehir rent, HP’s, phone and power bills, then buy their food and then spend any balance on the December treats.
May everyone have a very restful December and positive 2011.
Wealth Buy Property Rentals