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TheLastSamurai

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  1. Isn't it funny looking back at a thread 11 years later? Just reminded of this site when going through old internet bookmarks. Despite the losers who teased and trolled my initial enquiry, I bought the house for £605k right at the lowest point of the market in February 2009. 6 bedrooms, detached double garage, cellars, reasonable garden, minutes walk from railway station to Manchester, minutes walk from centre of the small town, minutes walk to large park. A frigging bargain with hindsight. But I was worried at the time. So we learn a few things about human nature in terms of the people who posted on this thread and how worry/inertia is not always for the best. Paid off almost all mortgage in 10 years, though have recently extended, and have a BTL nearby on a 10 year fixed at a ridiculously low interest rate with reliable tenants. Price is important, but affordability and the cost of finance (especially if locked in) even more so.
  2. Dialstone Road is OK, but the nice big houses on Davenport Park Road on the other side of the A6 are notorious for being burgled. I would have thought this was a magnet for thieving scum. A6 gives a nice quick getaway. Actually, while all nice and new inside, the decor, bathroom furnishings etc are typical refurb stuff and will appear dated before too long. Blue carpet on the stairs doesn't look too special and the front "drive" suggests the house is right on the road. If it had an asking price of £575k, maybe it would get some interest, but I doubt it would sell too quickly even then.
  3. Rather cheap shot. FP changed his prediction several weeks ago. See his recent Market Oracle article. Plenty of people forecast a bounce in the first quarter of this year. Plainly they called it wrong. There is something to be said for drip feeding into the markets now if you have been hoarding cash.
  4. Yup. As others have said, you are being played like a cheap violin. That is just what the EAs are like. Rest assured that the "other offers" are figments of the EA's imagination. I would seriously suggest dealing with the EA only in writing from here on in. It does seem as if they sense inexperience or uncertainty on your part. That is not meant to criticse - but what little training the EAs get will sometimes be in sales and to try and take advantage of your uncertainty. Offer should be in writing: make it short and to the point, saying something like, "We realise this offer falls short of the asking point and will doubtless be less than the vendor would have wished for, but due to the significant falls in the housing market to date and further market uncertainty we feel unable to offer more than £x. We are however chain free, anticipate no problems in getting a mortgage and can move quickly". AND when they phone back looking for more you say NO and say that you will leave the offer open for 2 weeks. Although I think it a bit too late, it always helps to let the estate agent know that you have another house in mind with another agent who has let you know that their vendorwill sell for £x. However you slightly prefer house 1 so would rather stick with it if it will sell for £x. I swear to you, this is a basic and time served negotiation technique. Unlike many industries, you can get away with it with houses, because there are so many for sale so they can't check or determine you are bluffing (unless you are a totally crap negotiator). Good luck - but pay not a penny over your budget.
  5. Your company will survive (I hope). Smart guys in business saw the trouble coming early this year and were cutting costs, laying off a few staff well in advance. Far better to do that rather than do what very many will do, which is only deal with the problem once the sh*t has really hit the fan. That will lead to continuing high costs with sharp drop off in turnover and presentation of a highly unattractive case to the bank. Even worse still is the position for some businesses who still believe that if the media will move onto the next 'hot topic' in the next 6 months, then everything will be alright again by next summer. I was speaking to a director of a medium sized company earlier this week in a sector mainly reliant on retail & hotels for his business who said precisely that. Great at sales and business integration, but obviously knows piss all about economics or broader business concepts. My bet is that the enormity of the developing situation is being masked by Christmas - even though this will be a 'poor' Christmas, the reality is that people are still spending and hence business is still moving. Post-Christmas, belts will be tightened more than for many years, credit will be sparse and things will get properly tough. And hopefully, this will really get the HPC going....
  6. This is real. My daughter's previous school in Marple called St. Catherines Prep, is closing this Christmas. Set up in 1977 it was full to capacity, sent 95% of pupils to the selective grammar schools in Greater Manchester and had a great "family" small school atmosphere. 2 years ago (as far as I can tell) numbers started dropping off. Reception and Year 1 were merged for the second half of last academic year. Seeing the writing on the wall I took my daughter out and she started elsewhere this September. The lack of new pupils in what had been a popular school has to be down to recession and belt-tightening. And this is just the start...
  7. Superb! You clot. I hope you still got the gig. What is the going rate for being a private doctor on a boat for 10 days to the very very wealthy? I guestimate £2,500 plus all expenses paid for. Is that right? No doubt Sibley thinks this is evidence of a booming global economy.
  8. Sorry RK - I don't follow this regional forum much. Have to laugh at my original post now - it was before the "Should I buy or rent" thread was pinned to the top of the main forum. I hadn't taken any notice of any similar posts, so I probably deserved the troll accusations. Oh, I offered £600k knowing it would be rejected and indeed it was, with no counter offer. Nothing wrong with testing the waters and we left it at that. Sold up in Disley, October 2007, still renting in Bramhall as at December 2008 with a lease through to June 2009. The manc city centre flat sold in the summer though with a real haircut from 2007 prices, though I made a good profit from purchase price simply because it was bought so long ago. Had I not been an avid follower of this site, it would no doubt still be for sale chasing the market down like a thousand other city centre flats. Wife is now an avid Moneyweek reader and so I have not been under any pressure to buy a house for quite some time now. The target house is, needless to say, still for sale. I suspect that £600k seems rather more attractive now! Will consider our position generally in the new year having casually started viewing a few properties in the last few weeks to see what is out there. 15% down and with a recession just coming into play... there is no rush.
  9. I think there is a lot in this. Any idiot can sell products for which there is demand for both the goods and available credit. To sell products in a difficult market takes perservance and organisation. The typical EA would not last for a minute in a cut throat sales environment. How much does a typical manager and sales staff in an average corporate EA outside of London actually earn? I think that would be revealing.
  10. Bump. I will ignore your senseless egg-chasing nonsense. My wife went into an estate agent for the first time in a very long time a fortnight ago. It was made clear that we were very happy renting for another year. She was in for half an hour from 1.45pm to 2.15pm as they provided her with every set of details in our price range that the shop held and ended up having a good chat. Given that this was a corporate, the EAs didn't really care too much for the vendors as customers and so gave every nugget of each vendor's pricing strategy that a buyer could possibly want eg. they don't want to reduce for reasons a, b and c, but know it will never sell at that price and so want offers at this sort of level and will think about reducing the price tag in 2 months time ... One telephone call during what must have been peak-time. No-one else entered during the full half hour. But best of all, the manager had his wife and 2 children eating lunch with him around his desk for the full time she was in there as she spoke to his colleague. Wife said it was a very strange sight and was quite clearly happening because the manager had so little to do and customers were just not entering the "shop". They just didn't care anymore.
  11. Your last line really hits the nail on the head and sums up everything that is wrong with analysis in the maintstream media. HPI has destroyed base line expectations of what housing ordinarily costs. A piece of outdated rubbish on what is otherwise a pleasant road near me has just sold for what I expect will be over £500,000. It was on at offers over £590k (previously at £650k). 4 small bedrooms, whole house needs stripped, new bathrooms and new kitchens needed before it would even be liveable (vendor was old man carted off to nursing home by his children), moderately sized garden for the area. Garage and storage areas are rubbish. It wouldn't have sold for more than £350k five years ago, but suddenly people think they are getting "value". If I were selling in the current market, the obvious tactic would be to retail it like a DFS sofa: put in an impossible starting price of £150k over what it would ever have achieved in 2006/7, followed by 2 quick cuts of £50k and then have the estate agent tell buyers that we were desparate to sell and would accept any reasonable offer that could go through quickly. Some mug would think they were getting the world's best bargain at 2007 price minus £50k.
  12. That takes the biscuit. "Idiotic" to offer a price of just a year or two ago! The fact the vendor is looking to put his price back up shows he is a complete idiot. No-one in NI should be buying a house for at least 3 years.
  13. Just don't link her to this thread or you will just lose any hope of good relations with her. Its her money and she can do what she likes with it. She has bought her first flat so long ago that she is not going to go under so you are not saving her from any sort of disaster.
  14. While I don't do financial advice, I suggest euro denominated government bonds are an excellent investment for the next 6 months and have deposited 40% of my reserve cash in them. The language of bonds is fairly impenetrable (yields, spreads, coupons etc) but the essentials are not so very different from a dividend paying share. Easiest way to invest is by an ishares ETF, which give you the choice of investing in bonds with different life spans ie. 1-2 years, 3-5 years or 5-20 years. Look up ishares on the interweb and you can see what they offer. You can buy them through an account with iii and most other online share brokerages. While I am happy to be criticised by those who are almost certainly more knowledgeable about the subtleties of Forex trading (which is risky), it seems to me that this is a sensible sort of investment: a. Some think interest rates will remain much lower for far longer than most investors believe. Hugh Hendry of Eclectica thinks this. He knows a lot more than me and seems to have done very well this year with investments. b. The ECB will likely cut interest rates, which will likely lead to some appreciation of the capital value of these bonds. c. If you believe that the £ will weaken further against the euro (as I do) then you get the benefit of currency gains. d. Bonds, unlike most foreign currency bank accounts held in this country, pay interest. Between b, c and d, I reckon this is a good place to have a good share of one's investments for the time being. The trouble with many investments is that once it becomes really obvious that it is a really good idea, it is often too late, so what was good for me a few months ago, might not be good for you now. But I thought it would be helpful to mention this option as it has not been mentioned so far and is much easier than investing in warrants.
  15. The whole country over, it is illegal (in the sense of breaking licensing regulations) for non-Hackney carriages for stop on the street. Hackney carriages are public hire ie. anyone may stop Private hire must be booked in advance. And a little known fact is that the private hire driver's insurance is technically inoperative if he picks you up from the street (known in the trade as 'pirating'). In Manchester, all private hire vehicles have large yellow stickers telling you that the insurance doesn't cover the driver for fares which are not pre-booked: which has the function of totally preventing any recovery should you get injured in an accident caused by his negligence. Even the Motor Insurers Bureau don't have to pay out if the passenger knew the driver was not covered by insurance.
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