Pitching sales to an unforgiving public

BELFAST BRIEFING:Having oversold the peace dividend, politicians and estate agents are finding it difficult to close deals, writes FRANCESS McDONNELL

WHO WOULD be a politician or an estate agent this week in Northern Ireland? Both are engaged in pitching sales to an unforgiving public who have to be reminded at every step of the way that what they are buying is a bargain.

Whether it is a cross-party deal on policing and justice or a three-bedroom semi-detached house in north Down, it appears closing a sale at the moment is an uphill struggle for politicians and estate agents alike.

Might it be because both professions are suffering from something of a credibility crisis in Northern Ireland? They promised the world in terms of peace dividends, investment boosts and inflated house prices but the cold reality is that both those bubbles have well and truly burst.

The peace dividend never materialised and Northern Ireland has suffered one of the biggest declines in property prices in the UK, which has created negative equity that will take decades to shift.

Politicians and estate agents in the North are strong believers in the “worst is behind us” school of thought. If history has taught us anything, it’s that to err on the side of optimism is asking for trouble.

Perhaps if the economic backdrop in the North was not quite so woeful, there would be more room for optimism when it came to house prices or political deals. But latest analysis has revealed that the Northern Ireland economy is enjoying no bounce back from recession or indeed any indication that a recovery has yet materialised.

If anything, since the beginning of 2010, the North has experienced a steeper decline in its economic performance than the Republic.

According to the latest Ulster Bank Northern Ireland Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), the North is also currently the worst-performing part of the UK. The PMI shows that new levels of business fell for the 27th month in a row in Northern Ireland in February while job losses continued to mount.

Is this something that should worry politicians and estate agents alike? Richard Ramsey, chief economist with the Ulster Bank in the North, certainly believes so. He says: “It is now clear that the Northern Ireland economy has not experienced the early 2010 recovery that we had been anticipating.

“This provides cause for concern given that the Northern Ireland economy is in such a fragile state before the public sector recession has yet to occur.”

He believes the recession is continuing to hit the North harder than anywhere else in the UK.

New industry research to be published today by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) supports this view.

The Rics is warning that there will “be no rapid revival for the Northern Ireland housing market as the local economy is set for a slow and uneven recovery”.

Tom McClelland, the Rics spokesman in the North, believes there is some evidence that housing transaction levels are rising at what he describes as “a marginal rate”.

But McClelland also concedes that sales are “still a long way off what could be called normal levels”.

“In terms of prices, there continues to be some movement, but we anticipate that average house prices will be broadly flat over the course of the next couple of years. There will be variations and there are risks,” he says.

Not good news for anyone trying to sell a house at the moment, but a cautionary

warning for Northern Ireland’s politicians as they prepare once again to sell yet another deal in Stormont.

Today politicians will vote on whether to devolve policing and justice powers to Northern Ireland. What they will also be voting in favour of or against is the North’s economic future.

Trade union and business leaders have warned that any backward steps in the political process will have a direct bearing on Northern Ireland’s potential to attract and secure new investment and jobs.

As usual the Americans, one of the biggest investors in the North, have been less than subtle about the impact of a serious disagreement at this stage in the peace process.

So if local politicians are really serious about dealing with the underlying problems in the North’s economy and reaching out to grab its potential, then it is time to close the sale on the policing and justice deal.