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When you say opportunities are extremely limited - is it in general or in IT specifically ? I’m planning to move to NZ soon and would love to hear more about t

When you say opportunities are extremely limited - is it in general or in IT specifically ? I’m planning to move to NZ soon and would love to hear more about the IT market.

zinckiwi 5y ago
The IT market is essentially non-existent outside the main centres (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch), and of those only Christchurch approaches affordable (mostly as a consequence of its recent shakiness).
- breck 5y ago
  I haven't been there in a decade, but back in ~2010 I remember it being slightly cheaper than American, and noticeably cheaper than Australia. Have things changed?
  - EdwardDiego 5y ago
    Housing prices don't ever stop here, a lack of CGT and aggressively lending banks means a very unhealthy amount of capital ends up in residential real-estate. My wife and I bought a 1950s, 5 bedroom house 30 minutes north of Christchurch for $520K in 2018. Estimated market price is now $640K. Not bad capital gains in two years... ...not that we're selling until some kids move out of home. Prices have also been pushed up by expats with considerable purchasing power fleeing Covid, and supply that is very far behind demand. There was something like 1 million Kiwis living overseas before Covid, which is 20% of the population here.
  - RantyDave 5y ago
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/real-estate/125691812/wellingtons-redhot-housing-market-records-third-fastest-price-rise-in-the-world https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/real-estate/1256918... Long story short: if you want a three bedroom house, a garage, a little bit of garden, perhaps a view? A million bucks. Roughly twelve times average wage.
  - erentz 5y ago
    Been looking at housing in Wellington past couple of months. All but one of the houses we looked at were very old, never insulated, often pretty terrible places with few updates over their life. They were all 1.3-1.5m NZD for approximately 120-160 sqm. So think something like ~1m USD for ~1400sqft that then needs 200k USD to bring it up to US standards for insulation, to make it healthy and ensure your kids don’t get asthma, etc. I really can’t express the kind of miserable shape most of these houses were in. In the US many would be just sold as tear downs and replaced with something new. The market here would in all normal respects be a bubble with average house prices now over 12x the average wage. The most unaffordable in the OECD I think. But the problem is the only thing NZers put their money into is housing. It’s treated as an investment where the goal is to build equity then use that to get the next house etc. This has been supported with very very low tax rates on property and no CGT on sales. (You pay a pathetic 0.25% tax on your property in Auckland.) On top of this poor policies have lead to not building enough housing for the growing population. So it’s unclear how it will resolve but it’s adding a lot of stress to the society, as half the population face a bleak future of housing insecurity and handing over most of their wages to live in bad conditions.
    - zinckiwi 5y ago
      Agreed, in the same way that "it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you," in this case "it's not a bubble if the skyrocketing prices have a real foundation" -- in this case, a severe shortage of supply that is not forecast to improve. It's not even a good investment when it comes to one's primary home. So your property went up 60% in ten years -- so did the one you'll have to buy if you sell it. The newspapers abound with stories of houses that earnt more in a year than their occupants did.
    - pmkiwi 5y ago
      It is never the right time to buy and few years later, after the market took 25%, you are like "We did a good move back in the day!". Bought my house 2 years ago (Auckland) and it is pretty good conditions (for NZ) with (almost) no isolation, windows that I have never seen in France, and a door which giant gaps at the bottom! And yeah, 1m+ $NZD... Hopefully the "prices double every 10 years in Auckland" trend will continue (we have some room for the interest rates to be lower...). Good luck for Wellington mate !
roca 5y ago
Our IT market is absolutely starving for people. The problem is, local companies don't pay very much. They consider a 150K NZD a good salary. You can make twice that if you get a job doing similar work remotely for a US company; I used to, and I meet a lot of people who do. Nobody knows how many people are doing this, but it's a lot and growing. I think our local companies might not realize they're competing in a global labour market now and need to pay accordingly.
- LAC-Tech 5y ago
  > They consider a 150K NZD a good salary. In 2020 when I was looking for a senior dev position, 120k ($83K US) was considered a good salary. Though I didn't have a network or a specialization, which hurt me. > You can make twice that if you get a job doing similar work remotely for a US company; I used to, and I meet a lot of people who do. Nobody knows how many people are doing this, but it's a lot and growing. Any tips for how to break into the US market?
  - roca 5y ago
    > Any tips for how to break into the US market? Most people I know doing this have a network, but there are companies that would probably interview you without a referral. In particular fully-remote companies like Zapier and Gitlab would be good bets. (I don't know if Gitlab pays global salaries, but Zapier definitely does.)

When you say opportunities are extremely limited - is it in general or in IT specifically ? I’m planning to move to NZ soon and would love to hear more about the IT market.

zinckiwi 5y ago

The IT market is essentially non-existent outside the main centres (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch), and of those only Christchurch approaches affordable (mostly as a consequence of its recent shakiness).

breck 5y ago
I haven't been there in a decade, but back in ~2010 I remember it being slightly cheaper than American, and noticeably cheaper than Australia. Have things changed?
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  Housing prices don't ever stop here, a lack of CGT and aggressively lending banks means a very unhealthy amount of capital ends up in residential real-estate. My wife and I bought a 1950s, 5 bedroom house 30 minutes north of Christchurch for $520K in 2018. Estimated market price is now $640K. Not bad capital gains in two years... ...not that we're selling until some kids move out of home. Prices have also been pushed up by expats with considerable purchasing power fleeing Covid, and supply that is very far behind demand. There was something like 1 million Kiwis living overseas before Covid, which is 20% of the population here.
- RantyDave 5y ago
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/real-estate/125691812/wellingtons-redhot-housing-market-records-third-fastest-price-rise-in-the-world https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/real-estate/1256918... Long story short: if you want a three bedroom house, a garage, a little bit of garden, perhaps a view? A million bucks. Roughly twelve times average wage.
- erentz 5y ago
  Been looking at housing in Wellington past couple of months. All but one of the houses we looked at were very old, never insulated, often pretty terrible places with few updates over their life. They were all 1.3-1.5m NZD for approximately 120-160 sqm. So think something like ~1m USD for ~1400sqft that then needs 200k USD to bring it up to US standards for insulation, to make it healthy and ensure your kids don’t get asthma, etc. I really can’t express the kind of miserable shape most of these houses were in. In the US many would be just sold as tear downs and replaced with something new. The market here would in all normal respects be a bubble with average house prices now over 12x the average wage. The most unaffordable in the OECD I think. But the problem is the only thing NZers put their money into is housing. It’s treated as an investment where the goal is to build equity then use that to get the next house etc. This has been supported with very very low tax rates on property and no CGT on sales. (You pay a pathetic 0.25% tax on your property in Auckland.) On top of this poor policies have lead to not building enough housing for the growing population. So it’s unclear how it will resolve but it’s adding a lot of stress to the society, as half the population face a bleak future of housing insecurity and handing over most of their wages to live in bad conditions.
  - zinckiwi 5y ago
    Agreed, in the same way that "it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you," in this case "it's not a bubble if the skyrocketing prices have a real foundation" -- in this case, a severe shortage of supply that is not forecast to improve. It's not even a good investment when it comes to one's primary home. So your property went up 60% in ten years -- so did the one you'll have to buy if you sell it. The newspapers abound with stories of houses that earnt more in a year than their occupants did.
  - pmkiwi 5y ago
    It is never the right time to buy and few years later, after the market took 25%, you are like "We did a good move back in the day!". Bought my house 2 years ago (Auckland) and it is pretty good conditions (for NZ) with (almost) no isolation, windows that I have never seen in France, and a door which giant gaps at the bottom! And yeah, 1m+ $NZD... Hopefully the "prices double every 10 years in Auckland" trend will continue (we have some room for the interest rates to be lower...). Good luck for Wellington mate !

roca 5y ago

Our IT market is absolutely starving for people. The problem is, local companies don't pay very much. They consider a 150K NZD a good salary. You can make twice that if you get a job doing similar work remotely for a US company; I used to, and I meet a lot of people who do. Nobody knows how many people are doing this, but it's a lot and growing. I think our local companies might not realize they're competing in a global labour market now and need to pay accordingly.

LAC-Tech 5y ago
> They consider a 150K NZD a good salary. In 2020 when I was looking for a senior dev position, 120k ($83K US) was considered a good salary. Though I didn't have a network or a specialization, which hurt me. > You can make twice that if you get a job doing similar work remotely for a US company; I used to, and I meet a lot of people who do. Nobody knows how many people are doing this, but it's a lot and growing. Any tips for how to break into the US market?
- roca 5y ago
  > Any tips for how to break into the US market? Most people I know doing this have a network, but there are companies that would probably interview you without a referral. In particular fully-remote companies like Zapier and Gitlab would be good bets. (I don't know if Gitlab pays global salaries, but Zapier definitely does.)