Saberu

As has been said it's a stupid comparison because the time frames are wrong. Doesn't surprise me though considering it's clearly coming from a bull with a VI in the housing market.

You have to laugh

It wasn't a serious sale I think they just wanted to 'test the water' so to speak and see what people thought their houses were worth. I'm glad the result was so much lower than they were expecting, it seems people bidded realistic amounts for the houses. Now all they have to do is start doing that outside Ebay and we are set for a huuge crash woo

I agree it's pretty silly. There are alternative websites out there which get a lot of visitors and don't cost money just for putting your house on then you can do the sale in private.

That would play perfectly into the hands of China. The reason they hold £750mil of US government bonds is to keep the credit expansion of the US going until China can safely change it's market from export based to domestic based in order to protect them from the coming collapse of the West. However I fear this collapse will happen so quickly because all the institutions, governments, banks, companies are trying as hard as they can to keep going. Eventually we will get a week where stock markets start declining very rapidly and the trend won't reverse because all the 'tricks' will have been used.

Even I get them and I'm a university student, shocking! All from the same company though, that loans.co.uk one.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned China. I've been wanting to move abroad for years and I will be going to China in May to teach English. I think apartments in the cities can be as little as 2x income for a Chinese city worker and 1x income (no thats not a misstype!) for an English teacher. But if you want to live in Shanghai it could be 3x that. Personally I'm looking to spend around 2x income once I save up enough money and i'll be buying without a mortgage woo! HPI is rife in some cities though so if you want to live in one of the fast growing cities you should get in asap I heard of a guy who had his apartment go up 7x in value and he sold it making a packet Not that I'm saying you will do the same, I think he was just lucky being in the right place at the right time and I don't plan to try and gamble on the property market in China myself. Obviously there is the language barrier (except for Shanghai where English speaking is very prevalent) so unless your willing to learn Chinese it probably isn't a good idea. But then by being on this site and being willing to move abroad I consider you are motivated and intellectual enough to want to learn a foreign language. You won't need to be fluent straight away just learn the simple useful phrases for getting about then you can study over time as your living there. Right how there is a huge demand for English teachers in China and all you need to make finding a job a peice of cake is a degree or a TEFL qualification. But even without either you can still get one, just make sure you shop around as some schools won't be very nice. If you want to live in the best parts of the good cities it would cost a lot more but to be honest if you have any kind of savings in pounds like £50k or something thats already good enough for a very nice area and apartment. Some apartment blocks have their own shared facilities/amneties around them that are all enclosed. Like a garden, pool, tennis courts etc. It's also possible to live in a house if you live on the suburbs of some cities and they would be equally as affordable but I have not been looking there as I like the city life. Oh and China is the tip of the iceberg for affordability, lets say China is twice as good relative costs to wages as the UK average if your an English teacher but in Korea it can be twice as good as China though you need to have good teaching experience (e.g. 3 years) and a TEFL to compete for those jobs. Indeed English teaching isn't your only option, if you have experience working in IT and a degree in IT you can get a good pay in Shanghai. That also goes for finance jobs. I only like IT as a hobby so I wouldn't work in that industry but some like it. Couple of other points to add: China won't be as badly affected by the coming worldwide depression and Chinese people are probably the friendliest you will ever meet

Exactly, I think the insane HPI is the opposite of what Thatcher had in mind. How people can relate HPI to her is ludicrous. Thatcher was the best priminister this country ever had and probably will ever have.

I could do a nice site for it using a database, but I don't think it's worth the effort just for one thread

Unless he's doing his mate at Nationwide a favour by getting all his clients to bank with them

I assume you just mean 3 years minimum, as obviously we could have a Japan style housing crash which lasts a decade!

I've been telling my friends for ages that price inflation this year on food was around the 20% mark but they didn't believe me preferring to say it was only some products that were inflating and not an overall trend. Though we have to bare in mind a lot of this is caused by worldwide wheat shortages due to a number of factors.

Wasn't he advocating holding dollars and living in the US aswell? He's crazy, crazy I say

Ofcourse thats the whole idea of adverts. Funnily enough I don't think I've ever saw an advert and been persuaded to buy something, except perhaps when I was a kid and wanted toys. I think us intellectuals don't get affected by adverts as much as the rabble

Being an 'IT guy' myself I can tell you the reason IT projects get over run is because companies pretend they can do things much more cheaply than they really can. Also add in the good dose of corruption that many government sponsored projects appear to attract and you can see why it's a disaster. Theres no reason why all IT projects can't be a success, just look at Google thats a huge project. Conifer hits the nail on the head, the tories would be just as bad except for Thatcher but she was a one off and did a lot of good for the country that I doubt future conservative leaders would even compare to.

Being an 'IT guy' myself I can tell you the reason IT projects get over run is because companies pretend they can do things much more cheaply than they really can. Also add in the good dose of corruption that many government sponsored projects appear to attract and you can see why it's a disaster. Theres no reason why all IT projects can't be a success, just look at Google thats a huge project.

I think 2x average local income is a fair price, I don't think I'll ever get my wish though. At least not in this country..

Great so If I get a full-time job I won't be able to earn as much as your bin man despite doing a skilled job

I wouldn't lose any sleep over a terrorist bombing them all

Does it mention the extent to which a property needs to be damaged or define damage in any way? Whats the law regarding the definition of the word? Might be a loophole.

Don't need to, just cut to 1% and let inflation do the rest. Inflation is the real tax on money

Not to worry, theres plenty of Indians to fill that supply News travels fast, over the last few years people have begun to realise IT is now one of the worst industries for pay. Thanks to all the outsourcing wages have fallen significantly in real terms.

Exactly, Japan exported all their inflation with very competitive exports markets yet allowed their domestic markets to stagnate and become uncompetitive.

Possibly the biggest news since Northern Rock? I'm no expert but I thought the ratings are what keeps people investing and allows those crooked insurance companies to cover the bonds by pretending they are AAA rated.

Sigh everyone blames the public or the banks when the real criminal is the government, they deliberately slow the pace of new builds by only allowing permits for brown field sites and having stupid planning permission laws. Theres no reason you can't have high growth in demand without stupid prices, you just need supply to meet demand in order to keep things at equilibrium.