Chicken

In other news Nintendo, the Japanese gaming giant, made $765m of net profit in the last six months, despite operating in the worst economic environment in decades.

Incredible that 600k - more than many people will make in a lifetime - does not get you a nice place big enough to raise a family. Congratulations on the new addition as well!

Maybe - don't know until it's done. I have just paid for a kitchen, bathroom and conservatory for significantly less than that and that was using the labour of others, not my own. I would have got involved but my time is better spent at my job. No specific training myself - just generally handy. I wouldn't be comfortable with wiring, complicated plumbing or larger plastering but happy to roll up my sleeves for anything else. Fair enough but you are talking about an entire gut job which is another animal. The point was to not include own labour as that's value that you create yourself. Not at all. I'm just saying that it's not impossible to buy an affordable house. You just have to be okay with the area and be willing to roll your sleeves up.

I grew up in Manchester, with 2 years on the border of Moss Side and Hulme. I know rough. Or the locals don't have the cash for it, or no income to get a mortgage, or they get their housing there for free from the council but yours is a fair point.

I think you underestimate how much work you can get done for £20-25k. Take my £4.5k estimate below and double it to include doors, windows and plumbing. Unless it's been gutted by fire, a lot of it will be salvageable. I know it's not Knightsbridge up north but in my opinion it's reflected in the price so you'd be £24k all-in for a modest but perfectly functional house. And just because you or I wouldn't live there doesn't mean that it's not acceptable to somebody else.

and then the house 3 doors down sold for more than double that 4 months later. Where's there's muck, there's brass I tells ya! Looks like prices peaked in the high 40's 2007/08 so they more than kept track of the market during the bubble run. the counter has now been reset so I bet this will be worth £50k once inflation kicks in.

Kind of depends of how willing you are to roll up your sleeves. New small kitchen from Ikea (basic but functional and including all the appliances) £2k, New bathroom suite (basic but functional) £1.5k, new carpet for a small house £700, paint/polyfilla/other bits £300. £4.5k for bits. If you're handy, you should be able to install all that and renovate by yourself in a month (might need a mate to help with some heavy lifting).

Maybe but the zoom on this link (http://snipurl.com/smv3w) shows several cars parked outside that row of houses so there's clearly people living there (since there doesn't seem to be any other reason for parking there). The blocks of "coronation street" type terraces in the surrounding area look rather grim but this particular house looks surrounded by fields on three sides. Look, I'm not saying that it's anybody's manor-born dream house but it does look like an affordable house in a not entirely unpleasant setting - which this country seriously needs. I'm as negative as the next guy on house prices - just thought I be slightly positive for a change. Feels quite nice really....

So we've all seen cheapo houses advertised or put up for auction at tempting prices to get interest up. Well this one actually sold for £15k (guide was £15-20k). http://www.roypugh.co.uk/auctions/lot.x?a=20091015&v=manchester&l=099 The uncharitable amongst you will suggest that this is all that it is worth. On the other hand, even if it needed a new kitchen, bathroom and redecoration, you could have a house all in for £20k. No idea about the area but the Google satellite image shows a lot of greenery around, plenty of parking and less than a mile away from a motorway if you need to commute. http://snipurl.com/smurn Don't think it would be too bad for a first time buyer and certainly affordable. Made me think anyway.

So we've all seen cheapo houses advertised or put up for auction at tempting prices to get interest up. Well this one actually sold for £15k (guide was £15-20k). http://www.roypugh.co.uk/auctions/lot.x?a=20091015&v=manchester&l=099 The uncharitable amongst you will suggest that this is all that it is worth. On the other hand, even if it needed a new kitchen, bathroom and redecoration, you could have a house all in for £20k. No idea about the area but the Google satellite image shows a lot of greenery around, plenty of parking and less than a mile away from a motorway if you need to commute. http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&source=hp&q=BB11+4LP&ie=UTF8&gl=uk&ei=XSzfSra1KMuw4Qb25ZwZ&ved=0CAkQ8gEwAA&hq=&hnear=Burnley,+Lancashire+BB11+4LP,+United+Kingdom&ll=53.787177,-2.253935&spn=0.00696,0.014462&t=h&z=16 Don't think it would be too bad for a first time buyer and certainly affordable. Made me think anyway.

You're playing a game of chicken - just a case of who blinks first. Is this the first house that you've bought? There's an additional negotiating step that could take place once you get the results of the survey back. A full survey (and it's not worth penny-pinching for the basic one) will inevitably raise issues that need addressing on anything other than new builds. You can ask for these issues to be put right as a condition of the deal or you can ask for money off. On top of this, the survey valuation (I take it you are getting a mortgage) is very likely to come back lower than your agreed price - based on several experiences as both buyer and seller - which affects your mortgageability. You can use that to negotiate as well. Of course, the seller hasn't spent any money so they can just say that the deal is off whereas you will be £1,000 out of pocket. The bigger question though is why you are stretching yourself financially to such an extent. It's nice to live in a great house but not if you have to sacrifice spending on everything else just so that you can live there. Houses are like girls (or boys, if you're a girl) - there's a lot of ugly ones about and the fit ones are usually taken. You might have fallen in love with this one but I bet there's a queue of others that you could probably fall in love with as well if you got to know them.

Essentially the same discussion in 28 pages. Enjoy... http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=64690&st=0

Excellent. In that case I shall revise my offer to £50,000 - equivalent to £141 per square foot. If I get it, I shall buy you a jeroboam of Dom Perignon for the £20k you will have saved me.

that looks like a great pied-a-terre and I would happily pay £70k for it.

Here it is in sterling terms - 22% down from the peak. Here it is in euro terms - 44% down from the peak. I could do it in gold equivalents but you get the picture.

Just like Zimbabwe in slow motion. As the currency collapsed, the Zimbabwean stock market was the best performing in the world. Part of it is the international element that Rachman talks about but even domestic equities will be seen as hedges against inflation.

Just going back through my old posts and saw this. "Motors Liquidation Company was formed to liquidate the assets of General Motors Corp which filed voluntary petitions for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. The Company On July 5, 2009 entered an order approving the sale of all of Motors Liquidation Company's assets to a new and independent company under section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code. The sale closed on July 10, 2009." So I hereby claim the £10 and ask if you could use it to buy a meal for a homeless person. ta, Chicken

Nope, because that entails a change of ownership - regardless of whether any money changes hands. Sorry, if there was a way to do it then everybody would be doing it (albeit with an additional step of stopping mortgage payments and running away with the house sale proceeds).

Nope. The mortgage will be recorded with Land Registry showing that you do not have free and clear title.

the "people have asked if the price can be lowered?" sounds like an excuse on the part of the agent - at worst you should have expected people on a lower budget to come and see the place and make lowball offers. Presumably you have checked to make sure that it is in their window, on their website, in the local paper, and on the aggregator websites? A one-bed flat is a starter place for a first-time buyer, which seem to be thin on the ground these days - either from not having a big enough deposit, or not meeting the income requirements. Is your place big enough for a couple? If not, you're relying on a single person making £40-50k (and them feeling comfortable enough that they will keep that job for the forseeable future). Sorry to be a bit gloomy but it's better to be realistic in this market. If you must sell then lower your price to at least generate some interest. Alternatively, you can try doing your own marketing (ebay, craigslist, gumtree, etc) - you'll be doing the estate agent's job but, again, some interest is better than no interest.

Although you make an offer on a house "as is", it's unreasonable to expect the average buyer to be able to eyeball every area of the house and be sure of what needs remedying (especially considering that most buyers spend more time agonising over buying a pair of shoes than they do inside the house that they might live in for several decades). That's why you employ a surveyor. I think it's entirely reasonable for the OP to reduce his offer to account for putting right structural defects. It's also entirely reasonable for the seller to baulk at the reduction being asked for. Note that although they have "interest" from another party at the full asking price, who's to say that they won't ask for a reduction when their survey comes back?

Were you aware of any bids on either at the auction? No point offering £100k if the bids got to £105k. It's unusual for a guide price to be set below the reserve price as it reflects badly on the auctioneer - they would rather not put it in the auction. One exception is where the seller has asked for a lower guide to drum up interest in what they think will be a heavily bidded property. I've only seen that a couple of times and that's clearly not the case here. Offer 90k on the cheaper one. It sounds like that's the one that you want. At 90k, you think it's a bargain. At 90k, you'll probably get the deal done. Can't guarantee below that and it sounds like you want it.

I'm back! Did you miss me? (probably not). It's a straightforward business decision. Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the founders of Skype, put the P2P technology (the same as they put into Kazaa) into a separate company called Joltid. The technology has always been licenced to Skype. When they still owned Skype, the licencing fee didn't matter to them as they were paying out with one hand into the other. Now that they have zero economic interest in Skype, the licencing fee IS important and that is what is under dispute. Skype is not completely decentralised - a small amount of centralised hosting is still needed to maintain your contacts list (notice how your full list of contacts comes up when you log on using a completely different machine?). Now, what have I missed?

same with HSBC. Just open a euro account and a dollar account and then transfer between them. No fees and the rates are pretty close to market (not going to be as good as an fx trading account but I presume you're not going to be day trading and it's about as painless as it gets).

Follow the crowd. If an original post is followed by a dozen other posts along the lines of "couldn't agree with you more" or "+1" then you are on pretty safe ground - essentially becoming a sheeple to the anti-sheeple. Alternatively, put a post on your original thread asking them to contact you via email, or pop round for a cuppa if they are local.