Marina

Doesn't matter what the yield is - the Estate Agent says it is an 'Ideal Invesment' - so it must be. Like you I can't be bothered to work out the numbers but a cursory bang on the calculator reveals about a 0% yield. If the price fell to some sort of realistic level - say a 40% fall - it looks like an Ideal Investment for someone who wants to invest 26k and then lose that and a bit more again. Of course if you can stand the 0% yield - or less allowing for voids etc - and can wait the 12 years for the property to get back to where it allegedly is today - then it really is an ideal investment - for a complete fool.

Don't get me wrong. I know this country is a much bigger dump than the Netherlands.

There was an article in a recent Sunday Telegraph (as far as I can remember) - the Middle Classes are leaving the Netherlands in droves - faster than immigrants are arriving - because mass immigration there over the last 15 years is turning what were once nice, civilized places into no-go ghettoes.

You can't seriously imagine that anyone on here will be able to resist posting on there! Because I definitely will. Heartfelt commiserations You have my deepest sympathy Shame you can't get out with all your housing equity intact, it is a real and devastating tragedy I cannot believe people are so self-interested, why won't they pay you what the house is so clearly worth? Surely someone should be compelled to buy it, you'd think the Government would be able to buy properties like yours when people want to leave a sinking ship - sorry, move abroad for a better life. The houses could be raffled after you have gone with tickets sold to recent immigrants and any profits forwarded in due course. Someone should be held to account - you have clearly been duped into believing your house was worth a certain amount and you have quite understandably staked your future on it. Could you sue the National Association of Estate Agents? Perhaps lots of people trying to get out before the housing market collapses could get together and fund a class action against every Estate Agent and lender in the country. Nice to know where there are lots of people desperate to sell.

A relative was recently in a NHS hospital nowhere near lovely, cosmopolitan London. My relative has private medical insurance and has been in a nearby private hospital a few times recently. On the ward on the NHS hospital I think it is fair to say there were no two members of staff with the same nationality. Many of them, including senior nursing staff, had very poor English. Surprisingly, most of them knew my relative. Because they all did shifts in the private hospital as well as the NHS hospital. These poor sods are earning bugger all an hour and having to do to two (at least two) jobs to keep their heads above water. And some fool on here thinks they are going to be the force that continues to drive the housing market up!