hayder

in addition to the 2.22% deal from Danske Bank. The Melton Building society also has a term discounted mortgage of 1.99% for 25 years (its not fixed, its a discount). There are no mortgage fees and you only need to pay the survey costs once for the lifetime of the mortgage. This is, in my opinion a better deal than the silly 2 year fixes with continuous remortgages. Of course every "mortgage broker" wants you to buy the silly 2 year fixes so they get a regular recurring income stream.

Its a discounted rate for term. not a fixed rate. So it can indeed go up if interest rates rise... but it will always be at a discounted rate and you never need to go through new mortgages every few years.

I think a lot of the software engineers around the SE area have been writing software for "******** companies" for the last 15 or so years... This has kept people employed and floating with all the PE / VC "funny money" who were all desperate to get a "unicorn" ******** company (a TikTok or some cross-social-media-meta-data-marketing mumbo jumbo nonsense).... meanwhile loads of things went completely unfunded... like improving our social care systems? improving our farming to be 100% self sufficient? Improving our built environment and transport infrastructure? Investing in high value exportable products (like broad band solar panels that are also made in the UK for export worldwide?). No, we invested billions upon billions in "startups" that all made some JS "apps" and a load of REST APIs for ********. Similar to what we did with housing.

I think the current situation mirrors many others in history. We are in standard bull trap territory. In every bull trap, incumbents try to "shore up the market" . This always fails if sentiment has turned. Whilst for most people in the UK real estate just means their home, prices and values are set at the margin. Even if every OO sits tight and doesn't sell "bag holder" is their name... the speculators and forced sellers will set prices at the margin. But of course the major key difference to most previous bull markets is that this involves almost the entirety of society and the state. The only precedent really for that is the south sea bubble from many moons ago... what lesson did we learn there?

danske bank's full term discount mortgage is the best on the market IMHO. one shot and you're done for the term. Have some money set aside in another "safe" currency (EUR. USD, YEN?) in case GBP crashes and interest rates shoot up... then overpay like mad from your other currency.

Danske Bank in the UK has an interesting "permanent tracker" at about 2.2% . it means you're never in danger of being put on SVR and no "arrangement fees" every few years. and in the unlikely event of interest rates shooting up, it usually means that the currency is shot to pieces, so you can cover yourself if you have any non GBP assets / equities / shares.

this has been government policy for decades. The only question is why did we (on this forum) only realise we're in a forest and not just a bunch of trees, now?

Apples' plus points is longer term updates for phones. So potentially they can last longer (with a mid life battery swap). On the negative side is their actual usability... especially for someone who has experience of handsets with decent usability. Their lack of standardised "back" button is such a complete moronic UI failure. And what's breathtaking is that their users are not even aware that having 3-4 different ways of going "back" which are not standardised across apps and often requires you to stab at a small "back button" in the TOP CORNER (so usually means needing 2 handed use to get there) is utterly idiotic. Things which take a single click on android (bringing up background apps, going back etc..) take several in IOS. The only reason apple hasn't implemented them is because they are loath to admit that their initial UI choice was wrong (like their 1980s and 1990s resolute refusal to add a second button to their mice).

the current mania takes me back to Dubai around the middle to the end of 2008. By then the global financial crisis was well underway, yet the mindset of the Dubai speculators had yet to catch up. So in those final heady days, new projects were being launched daily, people were queueing up and hiring people to queue up for them to be "first in line" for real estate developments. Brown envelopes were being exchanged with sales agents for the chance to be "first in line" ! It was utter insanity, and the entire place was whipped into a frenzy along with all the international tentacles (India, Russia, Nigeria, UK etc... who were the key players in Dubai). Fast forward 12 years. I'm getting occasional emails from agents in dubai (not sure why!)... price per meter for properties is about 60% LESS than in 2008! Its been a devastating collapse for them. This despite Dubai being in a reasonably good shape financially (certainly better than London). As for our situation. I would say London is a great place to buy and the country is a great place to sell right now. But you have to bash into the agents heads that asking prices are just the beginning of a Dutch auction!

so its prudent to buy a load of underpriced houses in NW England then and watch the debt being eroded to nothing.

are we talking about amber heard or herd?

The obvious one would be the government creating a "sovereign wealth fund" into which they share up to 50% equity for first time buyer houses. So Tim minimum wage goes to bank. He can borrow up to 70K ? Has a deposit of 5K. Government "buys" the other 50% ... so he can get himself a 150K little flat. The government's 50% becomes an asset in the sovereign wealth fund. The banks will have 0 issue lending against that. Watch every shithole flat skyrocket in price. The government sovereign wealth fund can package and sell on tranches of their "equity" to international REITs to recycle some cash. Can I be chancellor??

Russian Intelligence report due? Hill walking excursion booked?

Covid will be over by next spring. Ponzi scheme will resume even before that.

I don't think they hold it as a reserve currency as such. But a lot of their money finds its way into inflating UK property and university fees... that's the trade "exchange" that happens with the UK essentially. Since most of it comes via HK or Singapore or Dubai and is private capital rather than state capital, I think its difficult for them to stem that money from coming to the UK. i.e. an enterprising agent can setup a "REIT" in Germany... and chinese money floods into it, and it buys up flats in London. As long as London property is "an asset class" (as Bojo said when he was mayor), Chinese capital will find its way in to inflate it. The only effective stemming of it would be to have a 90% tax on capital appreciation for properties over £400K. That would kill it.

like real estate... it works on the belief derived from past perfomance.

Looks like we have some competition. Australia is throwing its hat in the game to try and pick up the Hong Kong BNO people. I wonder if we'll see Canada also coming in to try and pickup a morsel to keep their real estate ponzi going? The only thing the CCP can do at this point is capital controls to stop the flow of money out... Which will be an enormous boost for crypto currencies. If you're so inclined.

yea. I think we are underestimating the potential enormity of this. and as I mentioned before (and we all know well). prices are set at the margin. even a 5% boost in demand will send prices stratospheric as HKers bid against each other for grotty hovels in Barnet.

I honestly can't comment on potential numbers. But distinctly remember 2004 when we were told that "only a few thousand will immigrate from the new accession states in the EU"... and of course workers in Poland, Hungary, Latvia etc... also could (and did) emigrate to Germany, Austria and other countries in very large numbers. Whereas the HK BNO now have the UK as the easiest route out of HK. It may well be a damp squib... or an enormous boost to house prices in London and the wider UK.

prices are set at the margins. Even 20,000 extra buyers with a lot of cash in London will inflate the entire market enormously.

Estate Agents in London are popping Champagne today. Never, ever underestimate the ability and willingness of the government to pull something out of the hat to prop up house prices.

WW3 will be brief. WW4 will be fought with sticks and stones.

Borrow hundreds of billions. Get loads of contractors to donate and fund into slushfunds. ????????? ££££££££

as a contrarian, I'd say that the "old" mining and energy shares that make up the FT100 are undervalued vs the stratospheric overvaluation of the FAANGS and other social media companies that dominate SP500/DJIA. But, markets can remain irrational longer than we can remain solvent...

2003 was the fourth invasion of Iraq by the UK in a century. It was hardly a coin-toss decision. Labour or Tory, it would have been the same.