Minimind

I don't understand an entry level job that needs 1-3 years experience either. But it's a pretty menial position, installing Windows and so on, very much the kind of role a school leaver could learn on-the-job. It would probably lead to a better one if you were willing to learn. Whereas a call centre job is not likely to lead to much.

I have something to say about these damn flats... I also know someone who was working for quite a while on them, a company of builders. The developer is so-far refusing to pay them which is causing extreme difficulties. No justifiable reason, he just knows that it'll be very difficult to get their money back.

Arrggh! Why do other people see these things and I don't see any evidence of it at all?!!! I agree that prices are vastly inflated in Brighton and have risen by about 3.8 times in ten years according to 'up my street.com', and I'm hoping for a big fall because otherwise I'll never be able to afford to buy here. But, at the moment... Firstly, unlike you, I haven't seen any falls. What areas have prices been falling in Brighton? I've been keeping an eye on the market, and the areas I've been looking at rose last year. Secondly, I know plenty of people that have sold in the last year (at least six?) and they didn't have too much trouble getting a buyer (but admittedly most of my friends are in BN2 (Kemptown, Lewis Road) and BN3 (Hove), plus I know a few that have had chains broken for various reasons). I haven't seen any evidence that property is hard to shift. Unless things have changed very recently (as I hope!!), I just don't see evidence of a crash at the moment in Brighton. I wasn't lucky enough to be able to buy from 1995 to 2000, unlike most of my friends, and have been at the mercy of shite landlords in small, characterless flats for all this time, so I've kept quite a close eye on the market.

St. Paul's is a tenner now, and so is Westminster Abbey. The wonderful Museum of London is free though. Shame it's in such a dreadful setting, next to the awful Barbican. Who'd have thought the rich would build themselves such a slum in which to live?

Although I agree it might be mortgage fraud, the 30k loan isn't unsecured; surely it's secured on the house as it's part of a mortgage?

Good fun, but remember the prices from the land registry can be misleading. A family member brought a house last December for £340k but got £30k cashback (in a way I don't yet understand). So the true value was £310 but the land registry (and net prices) thinks it was £340k. This makes it hard to compare prices over time as everybody negotiates a different deal. By the way, the same house was sold for £110k in 2001.

Maybe you would consider this a childish reasoning... maybe I think like a child... but this is my reasoning. We can bang on about reasons for one thing or another, but house prices aren't a simple function of interest rates, inflation, immigration, etc. Rather, they're the result of an emergent dynamic system with thousands of variables and respond to a positive feedback loop caused by speculation which exaggerates falls and rises. This makes future house prices chaotic and very unpredictable. Factors such as immigration might perturb the system but probably in unexpected ways, otherwise property speculators wouldn't exist. We haven't enough long term data to produce a reliable model for house prices that could prove or disprove your points above, perhaps we will in a few hundred years. So it is hard to advocate particular arguments. Some argue that prices will rise, others they will stagnate, others predict falls and some of these will be right by chance; it doesn't mean that their answers to your points will have been correct. I therefore think our best hope it to look for signs and indications that would correspond with a particular price direction over the next year or so. My own prediction is similar to most posters on this web site. I believe that house prices will fall steeply because this would correspond with the recent observations that: 1 ) retail sales have drastically dropped; 2 ) insolvencies have risen to crazy levels and are still increasing; 3 ) rents yields for newly brought house are very low (although I know that's controversial); 4 ) high levels of short-term speculators have entered the market over the last five years, creating a fluid market; and 5 ) having a chancellor that probably has a political agenda that suits his short term aims (stability until he becomes PM) rather than long term ones. My 2 cents.

Two people in my street in Hove have suffered broken chains and both lost their desired house in the last three months , I'm not sure how common this is generally. One of them because the FTB at the bottom had their mortgage application denied because of existing debt. I notice a few home-made for-sale boards up around Brighton. People are trying to sell their house themselves rather than use an estate agent. I've never seen this before, and wonder if this is a Brighton thing or are people unhappy with estate agents across the country?

I have a (probably stupid) question about this graph. If the red line represents change in average in house prices and the blue line represents average house prices (relative to the long term average), then that would make me think that whenever the red is positive, regardless of its direction, the blue would be going up. But this isn't always the case. I'm missing something, what is it?

Richard Dawkins is firmly an atheist rather that agnostic and has spoken against agnostic opinions as being pointless and conciliatory towards people with religous beliefs. So your dad can become re-illusioned!

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I'm surprised that an electrical engineering degree simply needs a simple regurgitation of facts and a little swotting on past papers to pass. I wonder if all people that have taken this degree think the same? Frankly, this claim of yours causes me to wonder where you studied for yours... My experience of a physics degree is very different. It was hard, and I don't remember ever being tested on just a simple fact or rule without having to apply it. Higher degrees are even harder. For my D.Phil, it took me almost a year before I understood my field enough to even suggest a worthwhile problem to tackle.

It's obvious to me that you don't know what you are talking about. Maths and science exam papers (at least all the ones I've had to endure) do not test the student's ability to spew 'facts' by rote, but on their ability to apply what they've learned. It can even be difficult to identify and understand the problem within the question, let alone solve it. This is a wild shot in the dark here, but I guess you've never taken a science degree.

It already is quite a grim place to be. I've lived various places around Brighton and in the last few years, it's got remarkably expensive and violent. Especially (and I know Brighton people will back me up here) on the buses. What's up with that? Why do bunches of 12 year old kids decide to drink, swear, and shout on the top of buses? Is this a new national phenomenon or just restricted to Brighton? Another moan... Pubs that were pleasant places to sit and chat like the Victory are now so expensive (about £3 a pint? For flip's sake!) I'm up north at the moment and drinks are about £2.40. What is it with the loud music in pubs too? I remember going into pubs along the Western Road like the Freemasons or Coopers' Cask and having a friendly chat but over the last five years the music has become so distracting. *Thump*Thump* music! Everyone I know thinks the same, so who are the pub landlords aiming for? Presumably not people like us or our friends. We have to walk to Hove or Hanover for a nice drink nowadays.

Thanks Benjamin. I've already paid so it's too late to pursue the matter further, but it has played on my mind. According to the document you linked to, Guidance on unfair terms in tenancy agreements, an unreasonable demand would be: "Should it be necessary to send a letter with regards to late payment of rent, these are chargeable to the tenant at a rate of £35 plus VAT." whereas a reasonable replacement would be: "[The tenant must] pay the reasonable costs of the Landlord's Agent for each letter the Agent, acting reasonably, has to send to the tenant concerning breaches of the tenancy agreement." The agency received my late rent before I received the letter with their demand as it was only a single business day (and one Saturday) late. I do think it's unreasonable. I'm going to insist on 24 hours notice when they want to bring future renters to view the property! Petty I know but I can be unreasonable too! I was happy with them up until then. If they insist on pushing to the limit of our contract, so can I.