A technology professional from Bengaluru was recently laid off. But he’s not afraid, not yet. He shared a detailed post on Reddit to explain why.
A Bangalore-based techie believes that IT workers should think very carefully before buying a house in the city. He also personally considers his decision to stay in the rental to be one of the best he has ever made.
The man was directly working on an AI migration project at a large tech company. He wrote that his net worth was enough to comfortably buy a ₹2 million homes last year. Still, he decided not to.
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Instead, he stayed in a rented place near his office. He said his work in artificial intelligence gave him a realistic idea of what to expect in IT in the next few years. He was released last week. He says he couldn’t be happier with the decision he made about his home.
His central argument is straightforward. Bengaluru’s real estate market, he writes, runs in a cycle that is almost entirely dependent on IT workers taking out large home loans. In his opinion, this cycle is coming to an end.
“Roughly 70-80% of IT slaves work in service-based companies. For most of them, their work is directly replaceable by AI tools in the next 1-3 years, if clients so desire,” he wrote.
“But because of internal knowledge, bureaucracy, etc., maybe 70% of people can take 3 to 5 years. The remaining 30% will still keep their jobs because when something goes wrong, you need a human to blame and get support from AI agents or manage them,” he added.
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The Redditor also explained why companies are laying off their employees in the name of AI.
“They get two things by laying off workers. First, positive press coverage that they are able to use AI and do more with fewer workers, and second, improve their balance sheet by cutting wages (otherwise Wall Street will punish them for high capex),” wrote a Reddit user.
The technician himself was working on an artificial intelligence project that was supposed to automate the very work he had previously done manually.
“As an insider, I can tell you right now that the layoffs are mainly because of this
These companies took over during the COVID cycle at zero interest
these companies took over during the COVID cycle at zero interest. AI is capable of generating high-quality new code, but it is currently unable to maintain complex systems and fix the complex problems that keep popping up in production systems,” he added.
This report is based on user generated content from social media. LiveMint has not independently verified and does not endorse these claims.
Property prices in Bengaluru
His outlook on property prices in Bengaluru is neither bullish nor doomsday. He doesn’t expect real estate to crash in Bangalore. This is because Indian home owners psychologically refuse to sell at a loss. They will hold for years before taking a discount, he says.
But they also don’t see prices rising, given the large supply of new inventory expected in the next two years. According to him, the drying up of stable IT demand is also to blame.
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He suggests not buying a home worth more than 150% of his total net worth. He asks people to avoid making decisions driven by the fear of missing out. They should maintain a sufficient financial cushion to cover EMI payments during unemployment periods, he advises.
A Reddit user also reports that many of the units in the new developments are being bought by brokers and insiders. These are then sold to buyers at inflated prices near the holding period. He recommends the resale market as a better hunting ground for real value.
Disclosure: Direct quotations have been lightly edited for clarity and grammar.
