That's a wrap 2015

As the year draws to a close it's a good time to reflect on my goals for 2015, how I did and what my 2016 goals shall be. I am someone that likes to have plans and targets to hit in my daily life so this is an important part of my life to ensure I am tracking in the right direction.

My 2015 goals were as follows:

1. Be a more positive, happier, friendlier, loving and extraverted person.

I felt this goal wasn't completely fulfilled, whilst overall I feel like I've improved there are many things that I am still struggling with (most notably being extraverted) and I wish to take this new years resolution into 2016.

2. Obtain Chartered Engineering Accreditation and RPEQ Qualification

This was my proudest moment in my career so far, I have completed this resolution and am now a Chartered Engineering Professional and RPEQ qualified as well. The next step now is to ensure my work standard improves continuously so I can raise my level of work quality.

3. Bench 100kg, Squat 150kg and Dead Lift 180kg

This resolution was unable to be completed, in the first month of the year I damaged a disc in my back performing dead lifts and was never really able to get back into the form for dead lifting. Despite my best efforts, I was only managed to reach 85kg Bench, 130 kg Squat and a body weight Dead lift purely to save my back discs from further injury. I am unsure whether I will continue this goal in 2016 at this stage.

4. Race an Enduro Race

I completed this in a different format of a non gravity enduro race but still an enduro mountain bike race which was nice to do. My weaknesses in fitness on the mountain bike were found out and I am looking forward to improving it in 2016.

Now for the important stuff, I have related the following goals to my overall life goals which I wrote about here. My 2016 goals are as follows:

Personal Development Goals

1. Develop the following character traits - open, honest, friendly, happy, extraverted, confident, successful, respected. I will do this by engaging in group conversation, being honest, maintaining a stable personality, spending each morning smiling 5 times in the mirror, becoming interested in everyones day no matter how boring it may seem;
2. Cement important relationship and isolate myself from any negative relationships. I will do this by focussing on the relationships that I consider the most important and ensuring I dedicate the most amount of time to them (80/20 principle);
3. Learn to build a business as my passion. Be on the look out for exciting opportunities and pursuing them as hard as possible when you find them. In 2015 I discovered Thai Ice Cream rolls as a success in New York City and it has recently started a trend in Melbourne which I wish I capitalised on;
4. Become aware of the Brisbane real estate market. Continue to read Michael yardley daily commentary;
5. Blog 3-5 times weekly on health and fitness, Brisbane real estate and my own investing journey. Dedicate time during the week for an hour time slots to blog and share information;
6. Improve cardiovascular fitness by riding 1500 km total for the year. Road ride to work once a week (minimum 40km) and ride Cross Country on mountain bike minimum every fortnight;
7. Improve strength fitness by going to gym 3 times a week. Increase bench press to 100kg and squat to 200kg; and
8. Maintain 85kg body weight and much lower body fat (scan to be completed in January). Get a body composition scan in January and reduce by fat by 5-10% depending on results.

Career, Business and Financial Goals

1. Improve quality of work deliverables. Slow down work process and focus on the details to ensure silly mistakes are eliminated:
2. Explore the opportunity to change jobs. Continue to scour seek.com.au for Structural Engineering jobs outside the Oil and Gas industry;
3. Invest fortnightly in Index Fund. Automated payments into Vanguard index fund;
4. Invest twice into LIC fund. Invest into LIC for yourself and Em every 16 weeks into LIC fund.
5. Buy first home. Contact Metropole and engage them to help purchase first home to be a future investment property, do not get bogged down in the emotion and ensure that the property makes financial/investment first; and
6. Improve money management skills. Conduct fortnightly weekly expenses check on bank balance and keep track of all spending to ensure saving targets are met.

Brisbane Weekly Auction Da

Working life for 2015 is officially over, here are the latest weekly Brisbane auction data:

A bit of a rise in the number of auctions right before christmas with the total now trending up and still above the average since late September. Major suburbs of auction success were Calamvale and Hamilton.

Clearance rates rose to 50% with houses clearing at 49% and units at 50%. As noted above, Hamilton had three units cleared in the one complex. These weren't in fact new development but rather old existing units selling well below the median unit price ($550,000) at a shade under $300,000.

I'm interested to see what happens leading up to Christmas next week, I'd imagine a massive drop in number of auctions and the clearance rate coming into the end of the year.

Downtown

A major blow for one the biggest Engineering Firms in Australia, WorleyParsons who happen to have a big portfolio of Resources & Energy projects especially in the Oil & Gas industry. The share price of the company hasn't been going great of late and a quick look at it's latest graph I was quite shocked with how badly the share price has gone given the highs it once had in the $40's mark....

WorleyParsons has a strong interest in the Oil and Gas industry with many of its major projects in Australia revolving around clients such as BG Group (now Shell), Origin, Santos and Oil Search Limited. It is no wonder that the companies share price has taken such a nose dive given the situation of the oil and gas price over the past year.

A great time to own a vehicle if you were after cheap fuel, some say this was a reason for the magnificent turnaround for Qantas under Alan Joyce instead of his superb management skills. Qantas have stated  that it expects fuel costs for the six months to December 2015 to be down 20% than the previous half of the year and the full year fuel bill is expected to be between $3.61 and $3.85 billion, down from $4.5 billion in the 2014 financial year.

November SQM Research

Here's the November data dump from SQM Research primarily for the Brisbane market only.

Strong showing from houses this quarter and in the month with units lagging behind. This could possibly be due to a large number of stock starting to come online in the inner CBD regions and suburbs such as West End and Newstead as I reported here. Some recent auction data reports from realestate.com.au have shown that recently there have been a number of brand new apartment going under the hammer.

Nothing too extraordinary to report about the rental yield for Brisbane, minor changes in housing and units. Alarmingly however, over the past 12 months there has been almost zero change to asking weekly rental yield.

Vacant rates have increased and this is actually in line with what is expected during the summer months as foreign students go home as reported by SQM Research here. However there has been a spike in the total number of property listings as shown above with the number starting to reach a new high.

Been slacking on the blog posting... holiday season coming up and plenty to talk about!

I've begun tracking the number of Brisbane auctions and the corresponding clearance rate on a weekly basis as below:

Again, b bit of a dip in the number of auctions to start off the silly season down slightly with the number following below the trend since I started tracking in September, however as shown below the clearance rate increased a bit. Interestingly, houses cleared at just over 48% (114 total auctions) and units at just over 46% (13 total auctions). Towards the end of the year I'll show some data showing the housing and unit trends as well as a summary table for each suburbs auction data.

Clearance rates up to 46% this week, surely can't see the number improving much coming into Christmas..

Brisbane Weekly Auction Data

Drove two hours up to Tewantin in Noosa for a nice day of cross country riding only to put my Sram x.0 through the rear wheel, taking out two spokes, breaking the hanger and jockey wheel. Good times and best 20 minute ride ever....

I've begun tracking the number of Brisbane auctions and the corresponding clearance rate on a weekly basis as below:

A bit of a dip in the number of auctions to start off the silly season down slightly but still above the average for since late September. Nothing really sticking out in terms of major developments on auctions.

Clearance rates steadied at around 45%, very similar to last week despite a dip in the number of auctions during the week. The total number of houses that were sold either at the auction or before the auction was 39 compared to a total of only two units being cleared. 

November Index Fund Performance

A quick follow up post to my original on My Experiences with the Concept of Dollar Cost Averaging and my current continual investment in the Vanguard Australian Shares Index Fund.

This month in November the fund had poor performance compared to the month of October.

Still you can see plenty of room before hitting the peaks of pre GFC is 2007 and highly doubtful of entering an accumulation phase. At least my investment balance hasn't exceeded the portfolio balance.

I'll update this on a monthly period to see whether the whole concept of investing into an index fund long term at regular intervals works.