"Three fraudsters have been jailed for what is believed to be the biggest ever plot to make fake pound coins - after 50,000 false coins were found". "Det Insp Bruce South said: "These three men are organised criminals who were intent on undermining the UK monetary system". Pity someone doesn't arrest the world's Central Bankers too.

"U.S. house prices rose 7.2 percent in the year through March, the biggest gain since May 2006, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said". "Prices jumped 16.1 percent from a year earlier in the Pacific area, which includes California, Washington and Oregon. In the Mountain region, including Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, the gain was 14.4 percent, the FHFA said. The Middle Atlantic area -- New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania -- had the smallest increase, at 1.6 percent".

We've seen some strange stuff on property details ... but is that what I think it is on the bedroom floor ... ??!! Yes. Yes. YES IT IS!!

Yes, we did mean $50 million… Fashion designer Gianni Versace’s Miami Beach mansion has been on the market since June last year, but it seems that its 24-karat gold-lined swimming pool and numerous high-camp frescos and its own observatory have not been enough to entice a buyer at its original price of $125 million, or even its bargain-bucket reduction to $100 million

Merryn Somerset Webb, editor in chief of MoneyWeek, has long predicted a collapse of the housing bubble. Here she looks at the growing number of government interventions in the UK housing market and the possible outcomes that are likely to end in disaster. (Or more affordable housing if you look at it another way).

Global markets fell after weak Chinese data and worries that the US Federal Reserve may slow its monetary stimulus. In Asia, the fall was led by Japan's Nikkei index, which closed down 7.3%, having fallen as much as 10%. European markets also reversed recent rises, with London, Frankfurt and Paris opening almost 2% lower. It followed data showing a slowdown in Chinese manufacturing, and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke's hint that Quantitative Easing efforts may be scaled back.

[My kids] have never asked me for anything but it is obvious that, with their loans and high rents, even with jobs they will not be able to buy in the city they grew up in, without some help [from me].

Posted by drewster @ 12:26 AM 12 Comments

Actress Penelope Keith has attacked women who get divorced later in life, saying they are to blame for pushing up house prices. The star of To the Manor Born has said she has no sympathy for women in their fifties who leave their husbands because they want ' their own space.' The 73-year-old said: 'If only we could educate people to go on living together for longer. It's all these single dwellings, all these women in their fifties and sixties, who suddenly want their town space, to be their own people.' 'I read about affordable houses that are £300,000. Sorry? Affordable housing for whom? It's a terribly knotty problem,' she said.

Total food sales plunged 4.1% in April, their largest monthly fall in almost two years. So because the weather was a little cool we purchased less food. Or is it more like because of inflation we are wasting less and eating simpler in an attempt to restrain the spiraling cost of living.

Nationwide, the UK’s largest building society has announced that its share of the mortgage market has reached a new record high. It now has a 15.1 per cent share of the mortgage market, up from 13 per cent, after seeing gross mortgage lending rise by 17 per cent in the year to April 4th 2013 to £21.5 billion.