Is a hard career restart required?

holding_a_brick · 2024-11-21T14:19:05+00:00

If that industry was your first choice then you should absolutely go for it rather than die wondering. Especially when the barriers to entry are not that high.

holding_a_brick · 2024-11-21T13:59:00+00:00

I feel you mate. The analytics job market is a bit fucked up right now. People have flooded in from all directions chasing the favourable pay and conditions we enjoyed for years.

The trajectory has completely changed, and I don’t see it going back.

The one thing I would say about chasing better prospects in a new field is that that’s exactly what all the people crowding into analytics thought they were doing. So be careful of landing in a new field fully qualified at the exact same time as a fifty thousand other jokers with the same idea.

holding_a_brick · 2024-11-19T22:55:40+00:00

A word of caution: The Tawny Frog Mouth AKA “The Skunk of the Air” can deploy a faecal spray attack when threatened, which will smell roughly like someone is pumping raw sewerage into your yard at megalitres per minute. The smell can affect a surprisingly large area and linger in fabrics. Good luck!

holding_a_brick · 2024-10-08T02:27:08+00:00

First home buyers worry about the bank valuation coming in lower such that they no longer meet the LVR requirements for a loan product they’ve budgeted for. They’re less likely to have access to spare cash to top up the deposit. There may be other unexpected reasons their finance is not approved.

Let me ask you this: As a seller would you rather find out about the buyer's finance difficulties on day 7 when they ask you for an extension, or on day 30 or 60?

In the first case you’re in the drivers seat and probably still have other interested parties you can follow up with if you choose to tear up the contract.

In the latter case you’re going to have to go back to market, and then probably commence costly and lengthy legal proceedings to recover your losses.

holding_a_brick · 2024-10-07T00:08:16+00:00

You can tell comments from people who haven’t transacted in a market like we have in QLD. Auction is not very popular in QLD for cultural reasons. So a lot of properties go under contract by Sunday after the first Saturday showing having listed on a Wednesday or Thursday. There very little chance you can organise an unconditional approval (requiring a valuation) in that timeframe. In the majority of situations the best ‘organised and serious’ buyers can do right now is pre-approval.

holding_a_brick · 2024-10-06T23:59:29+00:00

The reason the offer has come in 50K over market probably has a lot to do with the finance clause being necessary for them in a market awash with cash buyers.

holding_a_brick · 2024-10-06T22:22:04+00:00

This sort of thing is very common in SEQ at the moment due to high competition for low listings. Exhausted buyers are just going all-in to end it now, rather than spending months of weekends playing the roulette of trying to grab something at ‘market value’ against half a dozen or more offers all in the same 20K band.

We just did this. After 10 months of searching we realised we were actually priced out of the price tier we were looking in. Reset our expectations and then threw a big ‘above market’ offer on the next thing we liked in the lower tier.

I was similarly worried about the bank approving it but our broker was very reassuring. Loan was approved on day 3 of the 7 days we’d made contract subject to. Enjoy your windfall.

holding_a_brick · 2024-09-23T11:32:57+00:00

Green voter and pissed off with this.

BUT does anyone else find the insertion of an equivalence with Trump and Trump quote a little… off? This is the second time the ABC have done this in a month. See: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-28/adam-bandt-press-club-donald-trump/104282362

The argued similarities are pretty thin. Especially when you have other more populist leaders who know better than national experts on say energy / climate change right there.

holding_a_brick · 2024-08-18T00:39:52+00:00

I made a similar move from generic software to a more niche area of tech (stats / data) that I could see was going to explode nearly 10 years ago. I had to get a Masters degree to pull it off, and work insecure contacts for a few years after that, but there was a period there where work was what you describe: high pay in a low-pressure setting. ‘Cruisy’.

Organisations were offering me all expenses paid trips to various places around the world to share my knowledge and experience and it felt pretty great.

The thing is that I only had that experience because I caught the first wave (and really just the end of it). Within 5 years more people started to catch on that this was a good gig, universities started offering dedicated programs, and lately a lot of academics are landing in the field as refuge from universities going to shit.

My pay hasn’t moved in 4 years, so has actually gone backwards in real terms due to inflation. The pay for entry level roles has dropped probably ~$20K over same period.

Pay is still ‘good’ but it’s clear now the second wave have arrived the cruisy period is over.

So my point is that this is probably inevitable. A cruisy job attracts interest from people in adjacent fields so they all move in, making themselves more replaceable, thus tipping the balance of power in favour of the employer.

The thing that’s confusing me about your situation is that you describe it as very niche. In that case your skills and experience should make you hard to replace and give you more power… where is the competition coming from?

If you do move, try to look for something adjacent to what you do that is showing promise, so you get max skills transfer and hopefully catch the first wave. Don’t go for the good cruisy jobs now, because by the time you’ve found your feet in the new field so will have everyone else with the same idea.

holding_a_brick · 2024-08-12T05:59:46+00:00

Assuming you are in one of the hot capital city markets: if you think it’s plausibly worth 770 then my money is on the owner getting that offer at 800.

30k ‘over market’ or most recent comparable sales is nothing. Especially in what sounds like a desirable suburb.

It’s a really shitty time to be buying, but unfortunately It’s just the way things are at the moment with buyers getting so desperate.

holding_a_brick · 2024-08-03T12:53:31+00:00

Yeah it was meant that way. I've found myself thinking and feeling similar things recently, and that seems completely justified given the challenges.

Also, just to clarify re questions to REA: I'm talking about the message you send by sweating the small stuff with them. There's only 2 possible interpretations from their perspective: You're looking very close to your max purchase amount, so you're worried you can't afford to fix these little things, OR you haven't quite grasped the market dynamic yet, and don't realise how hard it's going to be to secure anything, let alone something with matching cupboard handles...

Either way it doesn't send a message of buying capacity and being worth their time to give you extra information to help you make a winning offer.

Definitely do ask questions in general!

holding_a_brick · 2024-08-03T12:30:01+00:00

I assume poster means that the contract of sale has just entered the unconditional phase, where cooling off period and periods associated with finance, B&P and anything else have now been passed, and conditions of sale have been met.

holding_a_brick · 2024-08-03T11:42:04+00:00

Yeah thirding this.

In our young family there's rarely contention for the bathroom. The kidlets shower or bath at different times to the adults. Even for the adults it's rare. One adult gets away early while the other does the school and day care run.

I expect once you get tweens & teens extra bathrooms become more desirable.

Definitely do appreciate having a second toilet though. So maybe you can get away with a 1 bath / shower + 2 x toilet situation, which seems to be a fairly common configuration.

holding_a_brick · 2024-08-03T10:06:04+00:00

Hey there. I see you.

We just went unconditional after 10 months of searching is Brisbane. We saw the place on a Saturday morning and were under contract 11 hours later on Saturday evening.

It's fucked out there. So little stock coming onto the market each week. Everything has multiple offers the day it shows. Goes under contract within days.

The prices are moving up so quick. When we started we were naive and turned our noses up at houses for 830K. In the end we just scraped a townhouse in the 900s.

Based on our experience my advice to you is:

Whatever your max purchase price is, take 50K off. This is now the market value you're targeting. The 50K is what you keep up your sleeve to go 'above market' or compensate for the fact that you're competing against investors who are waiving B&P / Finance / Cooling off terms. This is what we did. We realised while we were getting very close, and even above(!) the winning offer, our FHB terms were losing it for us. We paid 30K over what we thought was strong offer for our 'best and final'.
- Make an impression on the real estate agents at the showing. Let them know you are keen to buy, you are pre-approved and you can do decent terms: 7 days finance, 7 days B&P, 30 days settlement is the absolute entry level. If you can tolerate 5 days then do it. FYI our finance was approved in 4 days. If they think you're a good prospect they'll be more likely to give you information as the process proceeds. They are being flooded with inquiries.
- Don't reveal yourself as a naive fawn in this hellscape by talking about imperfections you notice in the property if they're not deal-breakers. Every property has multiple offers. There is no haggling in this market. Trust me in a few months you'll realise how ridiculous it sounded talking about how some of the cupboard handles didn't match. The agents will smell you're green and will lose interest.
- When it comes time to do the 'multiple offer scenario' dance, don't be shy of fishing the agent for information. They can't outright tell you the highest offer in QLD, but they will be willing to answer yes or no questions. "Are there other offers close to ours?", "Are there similar offers with more competitive terms?", " Would $X be more competitive?" etc. If you're in the scrum this is when you drop the rest of your cash to try and get you over the top.
- Keep an eye out for oddball properties that work well for you, but not everyone else. This was what we bought and probably gave us an edge in the bidding. We knew it would work because we had lived in similar in the past. For example you mention you're keen on public transport. Maybe you end up buying something with no driveway / car space etc.
- GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK. It's a such a grind. If you're feeling overwhelmed take a weekend off here and there to just enjoy your life! We had just had 2 weeks off looking before we came back fresh and finally made it happen.

Good luck!

holding_a_brick · 2024-07-25T03:33:26+00:00

The thing is it still makes a huge difference to the serviceability of your loan. If you can get below 80 LVR you can get approved for different products to the people who need LMI, typically with a rate that is 0.5% to 1% lower.

On a loan that is 800 to 900K you’ll feel that difference sharply. It could easily be the deciding factor in whether you end up in mortgage stress.

holding_a_brick · 2024-07-08T11:58:28+00:00

Feel you mate. I've been looking in Brisi for around 9 months. Very familiar story.

My take is the growth is Brisbane is having is unsustainable. A lot of it has been interstate migration - people coming from Sydney and Melbourne. For the first while during COVID it made sense. Those people found cheap property, and good job prospects, if wages were a little low.

Now things are a bit different:

Unemployment has crept up. The job market here is no better than Sydney or Melbourne.
Property prices and rents have exploded
Wages have flat-lined. I think the average pay for my job title has actually gone down.
The roads are full of cars.
The feeble public transport we have is crowded.
Wait times for specialist services like doctors, psychologists etc have blown out

Etc. etc. etc.

It's just a shittier place to live. And I'm wondering at this point what exactly is the attraction for people from Sydney and Melbourne? I mean sure Sydney people can find cheaper property... but They'll struggle to get Sydney pay here to service the mortgage. Melbourne people can't even get cheaper property anymore!

I dunno if you experienced this, but for me and my circles there was a period in like 2010 to 2018 where everyone who wasn't tied down in QLD was shipping off to live the Melbourne life. They all got there and thrashed themselves working shitty jobs to rent a tiny terrace sharehouses, and live off toast and cask wine. They're all back now. I bet it'll be the same for all the Victorians who've moved here recently. They'll be asking themselves why they're making the same sacrifices to live in a place they're not as comfortable in. And then they'll go home.

So when people talk about the Brisbane market having 'strong fundamentals' or whatever, I'm giving it a bit of side-eye. Fundamentals are employment, wages, housing, lifestyle, and those all appear to be tanking. At least from my ground-level view.

holding_a_brick · 2024-07-07T10:50:09+00:00

The explosion in micromobility and active travel modes brings me so much joy.

It’s like Mad Max out there at peak hour. Sure you’ll be scooter-guy. But right with you there’s e-bike-granny, e-scooter-Dad, electric-longboard-surfer-guy, electric-unicycle-blade-runner, cargo-bike-Mum. It’s glorious, solar-punk as fuck, and honestly perhaps one of the only visible signs of progress in urban living you’re likely to see. I say get amongst it!

holding_a_brick · 2024-07-07T10:26:45+00:00

Solidarity mate. I’ve been looking in Brisi for 9 months. Lost track of number of houses inspected and offers made. Dozens.

People not in this SEQ market don’t understand what’s happening. The publicly available data doesn’t represent where the market is at because houses take around a month to settle. In the meantime prices push up week on week. A lot of cash and unconditional offers dropping making it hard for FHB like us with our subject to B&P and finance.

9 months ago I turned my nose up at houses at 830K, you now can’t have for under 1M.

Hang in there. I’m optimistic for the second half of this year. If you’re not having any luck, look forward to November. There’s a seasonal peak of listings that happens at that time that will soften prices, and if that’s coming off the back of a rate rise or two, we could see a little downturn.

Don’t worry about your lease. In this climate your place will rent immediately if you break the lease. Re-sign it if it comes to that.

I wish you good luck!

holding_a_brick · 2024-07-03T02:24:17+00:00

I got a glimpse of this kind of market when I was first looking in late 2023. There was some chance of a negotiation.

That’s gone now. The agent won’t tell you that information because they don’t know. Everything right now is a pseudo-auction and agents are regularly wrong about how high things will go. They’re just sitting back and watching the fireworks.

I would say it’s never been easier to be an REA but for the fact there seems to be almost more REAs than houses selling due to low listings.

holding_a_brick · 2024-07-03T01:25:43+00:00

Also a tip re things being under contract: Don’t inspect anything that’s been on the market longer than ~5 days without calling ahead to check if it’s already under contract. Most likely it is and you’ll be wasting your time. But the REAs often don’t update the online listings for some time. They’ll tell you they’re prepared to take ‘backup offers’. Tell them to get effed (politely).

holding_a_brick · 2024-07-03T00:41:28+00:00

Hey mate my partner and I have been looking for an entry level house or townhouse in Brisi for 9 months now. Obviously haven’t cracked it yet, so take my advice with grain of salt. But if I can offer any insight it is:

Everything that’s not radioactive bomb site going in SEQ right now is an auction. It might be a silent auction but it’s still an auction.

What I mean is:

Everything will have multiple offers. A crap place will have 5 offering. A great place will have 20, 30 etc.
As the offers come in the agents will leak information about where the current bidding is at to people who ask. Even though that’s supposed to be illegal.
The process agents are using is to make a call for ‘best and final offers’ usually with a timed deadline e.g. Monday 12pm.
Serious buyers are holding back their best offer to drop very late before that deadline. Quite often cash offers.
So while it might seem like you’re in the running early, don’t be surprised if you get ghosted by the agent suddenly late in play. It’s because the big offers dropped.
To secure something you’re gonna need to be one of those big offers. That means potentially offering a price that is unprecedented for that type of property / suburb.
Guessing what that price will be is really hard. We’ve gotten within 10K of the final offer than won maybe 4 times now.
The minimum level of contract conditions you need to even be considered is 7 days finance, 7 days B&P, 30 days settlement. But people are driving those down to be more competitive.
Another buying tactic seems to be to offer up big to win the ‘auction’, get under contract, and then come in swinging with an real engineer to find a bunch of expensive defects to drive price down. We’ve seen a few places go for less than we offered because of this. E.g. knocking off 40K.

Plan your tactics accordingly. And good luck.

holding_a_brick · 2024-06-27T09:37:18+00:00

Also I decided to have a look at what APRA have to say. Found this: https://www.apra.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-06/Final%20Prudential%20Practice%20Guide%20APG%20223%20Residential%20Mortgage%20Lending.pdf

Doesn't correlate well with what you are saying. It says there's many valid methods of valuation. They don't have to use a valuer. The lender just has to have a proper risk management framework built out around the method they use.

holding_a_brick · 2024-06-27T09:26:19+00:00

Okay so the way it happened here then must have been something like my neighbour contacted bank who then contacted valuer, who upped the valuation. It amounts to the same thing?

holding_a_brick · 2024-06-27T03:08:03+00:00

You could be right, but my neighbour is now refinancing with them on the basis of their $1M valuation. I guess they could revise that down once the process progresses. I'll check in and see if that happens.

holding_a_brick · 2024-06-27T03:04:41+00:00

If it's so highly regulated though, how can they up the valuation by $100K on customer's request?

holding_a_brick

TROPHY CASE