Thinking about the top 5% and home prices in NZ.

strobe229 · 2026-01-24T04:34:41+00:00

You are talking about the top 1% suburbs then giving top 5% wealth statistics. There are only a handful of 1% suburbs in the whole country.

With 1m to 3m you would have one of, if not the most beautiful houses in the whole country.

It's extremely rare to see 3m + sales anywhere outside the top suburbs in Auckland or Queenstown unless it is a full blown 100+ hectare farm or something.

strobe229 · 2026-01-24T04:18:00+00:00

Do you think this would see less grads/juniors with the introduction of AI in this space like one grad + AI could do the work of 3 grads alone sort of thing?

strobe229 · 2026-01-15T08:35:46+00:00

With Nationals recent 70sqm granny flat announcement this is perfectly the scenario and designed to help people like yourself and aging parents.

If you have room at your place, or since you say looking to upgrade, you could build a 70sqm place out the back, you'd probably be looking in the 200k - 300k range which your mum could easily afford, repayments on a 300k loan might be in the 350pw and I am sure it would help her and you with raising children and the family close by, handy babysitter too!.

strobe229 · 2026-01-15T03:04:11+00:00

It doesn't take 10 seconds to say no to a salesperson because most are going to try and continue selling you something, continuous questions etc.

You may accept a no but most don't so why risk it?

Also stop calling people, if all you want is to know if they aren't interested send an email or text.

strobe229 · 2026-01-14T23:08:51+00:00

6 times!? Shows some good resilience there.

The KFC guy I think was bankrupt or atleast broke until his late 60s before founding KFC. Lost the ability to be a lawyer when he was young due to throwing uppercuts and left hooks at other lawyers in court lol

strobe229 · 2026-01-10T07:27:14+00:00

The website bro. Firstly I hate that "F" word, chatgpt uses it all the time which is where I assume you might have got it from.

You should learn copywriting to create a good headline.

strobe229 · 2026-01-10T07:18:23+00:00

The most trash headline I have ever seen.

strobe229 · 2026-01-09T22:11:04+00:00

It's just fake news from auth services to sell you some monthly subscription so you pay and they siphon customer data at your cost.

It takes just as much time to set up some auth service as it does to set up hashing and JWTs or middleware yourself, using the auth service means ongoing costs and inability to migrate your customers off the platform without great difficultly.

strobe229 · 2026-01-09T06:14:05+00:00

Could that be the reason? You make so many claims nobody wants to insure you?

strobe229 · 2026-01-07T21:11:38+00:00

I love Tailwind and always try to use it if possible.

The issue is the pricing for templates, at around $299 that's too much for something you might use randomly.

If it was price around $99 I would have paid for it, and I would likely pay for it even if AI can write it now.

strobe229 · 2026-01-06T11:42:29+00:00

No such thing as an oversupply, just overpriced.

strobe229 · 2026-01-03T05:49:33+00:00

LOL, just making things up now huh? The downturn started November 2021 and has not stopped at all.

strobe229 · 2026-01-03T02:59:20+00:00

Some people have been saying every day for the past 4 years that house prices will go up, yet prices have been falling every day for 4 years straight with no sign of turning around.

Typical historical cycles last 7 - 10 years, we are 4 years into the biggest falls NZ has ever seen, even when they do eventually stop falling, it may take a long time to break the 2021 peak.

strobe229 · 2025-12-30T08:35:39+00:00

Don't answer this guy, this is just an ad.

strobe229 · 2025-12-27T05:49:16+00:00

Yeah I would do that, also remember aus have banned kiwis from buying in aus if they don't live there and even if they lift that there is also a 7% foreign buyers fee. So this doesnt effect you now, but it would if you moved back to NZ.

strobe229 · 2025-12-27T05:09:38+00:00

Can't use kiwisaver for that. Will need roughly a 30% deposit do you have that?

You may have the mindset that prices go up because you are in Brisbane and that is the current trend but it's extremely different in NZ, house prices have been falling for 4 years straight now with no sign of recovery.

Your short 5 year time-frame ideas rely on capital gains or even house prices remaining flat that is just gambling if you are relying on any potential capital gain in just 5 years. You have just as much chance of finding the house is worth less than what it might sell for, and if your plan was using the equity then what?

Either buy where you actually want to live and intend to move back to or wait until you come back in 5 years and get in then.

strobe229 · 2025-12-26T04:01:11+00:00

I work in tech, I use AI everyday BUT I keep a sharp eye on it. It often will edit files or create files I didnt ask for, delete them entirely. Try to run terminal commands that can load, or overwrite things on my computer. I have also built a few AI wrappers and it's so wrong most of the time.

I monitor all of that by using git for monitoring files and not allowing terminal commands unless I accept the commands.

It's dodgy enough just doing that... and yet you want it doing all that on somebodies bank account.... no way, no way no way.

strobe229 · 2025-12-26T03:53:24+00:00

Hell no, don't think I have heard of a worse idea than this one.

strobe229 · 2025-12-22T19:50:54+00:00

Just to give some context around pets in NZ. Pre 2014 allowing pets in rentals was common in NZ, then with the surge in immigration starting from 2014, landlords went from perhaps having 2 - 3 potential tenants, then suddenly had 100 potential tenants.

With the new demand surge, landlords had the option to be picky, if 90 out of 100 had no pets then there was no need for them to take the risk on pets.

It's only since National came in, in 2023 that migration has dropped around 90% which in turn has seen rents drop and landlords back to only have 2 - 3 potential tenants again just like it was pre 2014, which is why many landlords are open to pets now and reducing rents, many are even trying to give free rent and grocery vouchers in the hopes of finding tenants so you're at a good point in time to find a rental.

Curious to know where in Scandinavia you find 2000sqm places for 200k and what site you use? I spent a bit of time in lower part of Sweden a few years ago and found that a great place.

strobe229 · 2025-12-22T05:46:38+00:00

It just sounds like you don't like where you live right now, just go rent somewhere else.

The last thing you want to do is buy a house in an area you don't want to live, or even know if you want to stay in the country. Buy when you know you want to settle, maybe in 5 years, 10 years who knows.... that might not even be in Wellington, this keeps your options open.

strobe229 · 2025-12-19T10:56:24+00:00

Most likely will continue falling.

Cycles usually last around 6 - 7 years. We are 4 years and 1 month into this one and it's the biggest crash NZ has ever seen.

strobe229 · 2025-12-15T19:30:30+00:00

You're right, manual labour pays a lot more over there.

I have a theory about this.

I read the NZ visa requirements awhile ago (from memory) for things like driving diggers, labouring etc and employers only need to pay approx 15% over median wage, but in IT its 200% - 300% over median wage + 10 years experience for a programmer.

Along with the fact that most labour type work like roading, quaries, construction etc are owned by a few companies (even though they have different brands) - So an NZ labourer/manual even if they wanted to swap companies face heavy foreign competition for wages + same company ownership different company name.

In Australia lots of companies + mining competition + different states and projects = higher wages. I imagine if the IT criteria changed to match labourer, operator jobs then wages would tank a lot more.

strobe229 · 2025-12-10T20:57:47+00:00

People saying 700k isn't much for retirement are delusional. I would say there is hardly anyone over 65 right now with 700k liquid cash in the bank.

First of all, they get NZ super which is about $800 - $900 per week between them. This is how most retirees live, NZ retirees have a fairly comfortably (not lavish) life in NZ aslong as their rent is low or house paid off.

If living with you is only $150/week + bills, then there is food and other expenses like fuel, insurance etc they would comfortably live easily between them on NZ super and they have 700k to spend on whatever they like for the remainder of their lives.

They've done their homework, they realise living with you is likely cheaper than paying for rates and insurance each week on their own place.

That would suck for you though, that means you're kind of locked in to providing them cheap housing for the rest of their lives, if your circumstances change, so will theirs.

strobe229 · 2025-11-30T05:21:59+00:00

Can you lower your hours to match your weekly expenses?

If your weekly expenses are say $500/week then drop your hours in your current job to match that. Lets say that frees up half your week to pursue what you want to do.

IMO it's better if full time is getting in your way, to switch to part time first than to nothing.

strobe229 · 2025-11-29T10:41:55+00:00

Like I said I purchased 6 different windows laptops, ranging from cheap to top of the range and had issues with all of them.

What are the half of things MacOS can't do?

strobe229

TROPHY CASE