State of the Business Sales Market 1st to 15th March 2013

I was suitably surprised when I saw the statistics/graph below.  I was half expecting to write a report on how the long weekend and the news of Victoria in a recession for the last quarter of 2012 may have limited the number of enquiries for the month of March.  However halfway through March we are already on par with total enquiries with February and more than halfway past January.  I do foresee this positive trend continue but I am still mindful about the uncertainty a federal election can cause.

You can see evidently in the graph below that public holidays do impact the level of enquiries for the week.  Historically months with a public holiday do show a dip in enquiry levels, we don’t have any hard data as to the reasons why however my belief is that generally consumers just wish to enjoy the extended break and take their mind off ‘business’.

I’m unsure about you but I know a few including myself were very surprised to hear the latest growth figures showed Victoria was actually in recession in the last quarter 2012.  Not been an economist I’m no expert in the anaylsis for this result, however from my reading I gather it is likely a result of cut in government spending to deliver a budget surplus and the impact of the high Australian Dollar.  From our perspective at BF Brokers Group, whilst still a challenging environment, during that time (last quarter of 2012) small business certainly appeared to be on the improve, and there are many other indicators that also point to an improvement in the overall economy, consumer confidence, job figures, share market etc…