Brad Olsen

I am.

I'm trying to avoid getting harassed down that end of town, but yes, no, settled here in Wellington and trying to keep well clear of all of the disruptions we seem to be having, trying to miss Omicron 2.

It's probably over two weeks now, or it certainly feels like it.

There's still a lot of tension down there, but it has thinned out a bit more.

It's very much now a pretty rowdy core of protesters emerging, still making everyone feel very, very unsafe, very, very unwelcome in their own city.

Yeah, there is certainly a feeling that the world has been further upended.

We weren't fixed, we weren't necessarily normal yet, but we were looking to establish what the new normal might look like, what the sort of new trading conditions might appear as for the global community.

That has gone out the window in my mind.

We've got armed conflict in Eastern Europe.

We've got the

Armed troops on the ground, missiles being fired through the air, nuclear threats being passed along.

It's about as real as it's ever going to get.

And what it does, in my mind, is just stoke that uncertainty that we've had persisting over the last few years, but exacerbates it.

This is a whole different kettle of fish.

You know, we're now grappling a pandemic alongside war.

So it does very much, I think, unsettle expectations that we're sort of through the worst of it and that we're necessarily rebuilding on a better path.

It's never, in a sense, been more uncertain than it is today.

I think it will be making some households very uncomfortable, that thought of possibly being in negative equity.

It really does highlight the perfect storm we seem to find ourselves in.

We've had house prices increase nearly 30% over the last year or so, but for the last two months, slight monthly, month-to-month falls, and you are seeing as well those interest rates start to rise.