Guest_flaps_*

So just squat in one instead.

Actually, as a young 'un, I was dead against squatters I tghought they should be allowed to be forceably removed and given a good kicking along the way. However, I'm all for them now. In fact, I will actively start encouraging it. Its sick we have so many empty properties/people sitting on empty ones they won't let and just expect capital appreciation from. ****** 'em, I want to see an explosion of squatters, might make people think a little differently.

No, they just need to get all the unused housing stock into use. Oh and make a ruling that whenever a property goes to aution, it sells for whatever the highest bid is. I know a number of properties around my way which have not met the banks reserve price, so back on the market they go, no one buying, no one able to rent, just an empty waste of a pile of bricks someone could be utilising.

Plus they must already be living somewhere, so are they vacating another rental, or been staying at their folks.

Excellent cheers Redhat! I remembered reading a bit about the guy who lived in the van but forgot about it and the conversion link is very interesting and useful.

I've a couple of mates who are big into kite surfing so have kitted their vans out for weekends away at the coast and as I love camping myself, really have been pondering buying and kitting out a van anyway for weekend use for a while, as it's so much easier and flexible than using a tent. Pretty much just pull up, admire the view and get a brew on! That Astra van I had I slept in a number of times and started getting a taste for that type of thing. The feeling of freedon is great. So then I just figured it would make sense to extend this idea if the worst happened job wise. Go and have fun mobile living in Europe until the money runs out. Then run back to "Benefits Britain"! Although I'd like to think something far better would crop up as a lifestyle choice during my time away!

When I say going abroad, I mean out of spite. There is no way, if I got made redundant tomorrow, would I stay in this country and spend all what I have worked for on keeping myslef alive in this high cost ecomony. They want me to spend it and I would, if they allowed house prices to correct, but they won't so tough. I would simply spend a few grand on a VW T5, get a couple of mates I know who are into that sort of thing to help me spec if out with basics (bed, table, cooker, heater) get a side door awing and then jjust drive onto the continent and spend my cash there instead. Better weather, new experiences, makes far more sense than trying to get another job in a high unemployemnt economy where real wages are falling whilst paying a fortune to keep a crap roof over my head. When i run out of cash, come back and throw myslef on the state. ****** 'em! Or maybe never come back. Who knows? Yeah sterling hasn't been a great punt looking back, but its value is still greater abroad than here, despite the depreciation.

I don't regret buying back then, because 2 redundancies since then (one being Bombardier!) made me realise just how important it was to be able to move quick for new work and the hassle and costs of having a mortgaged house would have been. Instead, I now plan to buy a house that will see me through until I'm done with the world now, rather than 'trading up'. Its over the last couple of years that you start hearing people discussing the downside and costs of mortgage ownership and the worries etc that you feel some relief. But some of those dinner parties between 2005-2008 were pretty hard to stomach!!! I'm an engineering buyer and am still (just) managing to retain a career within the industry. Again, a couple of redundancies really make you focus on long term affordability etc, rather than "can we afford it next month? Yes? Nice, lets buy it then"!! Absolutely non of my mates got made redundant during the 'good' times, so was a perspective they never had to face. My redundancies, more through luck than judgement to be fair, have proven far more positive than negative in the greater scheme of things. The mania was crazy beyond belief. People knew I had a decent stash back in 2006/2007 and just about everyone I knew was already in property. I was 30 years old, renting an attic room in a student house with 2 just graduated 20 odd year olds down stairs. No one could understand my reasons for doing that rather than buying, so they just decided I was trying to hide the fact I was actually really poor by making up scare stories about house prices crashing and was just a bitter, jealous saddo. I was driving an R plate Astra van then as well which I got for 500 quid (could have afforded something waaaaaay better and flasher, but it was reliable and cheap!) so all in all, imagine how things looked for me amongst my various groups of friends back then (especially the labourers who were coining it in and having a right old laugh at 'clever' Flaps and his wasted Uni education)!!! I hope the last line doesn't become a prophesy, but I've worked bloody hard, done some shit jobs to keep money coming in, taken no benefits from the state, driven naff looking vehicles and lived in somewoeful (but cheap) accomodation, while 95% of everyone else has known as flashed it up on credit. I don't want to see them suffer and I've no intention of being an 'I told you so type'. But if all that ends up for nothing, well..........

I've been waiting since 2004 GMan!! When I was considering a move up to Leeds, I had a mate up there with a decent starter home he had bought the previous year which he was putting on the market having met a lass elsewhere and wanting to move down her way. 2 bed new build, small rear garden, that kinda thing. Ideal for a young singleton about to head up to a city. He bought it for around £60K. I asked what it was going on the market at. £90K he said. I choked, coughed and spluttered. Not a million months later he sold for asking price!! Me and him sat in a pub a few weeks later and he was telling me how selling the house had allowed him to clear his debts and stuff with the £30K he 'made'. I pondered "so if I had bought this gaff off him, I would basically be saddling myself to buy the house, plus be using my future graft to pay for all the fun he had on credit cards as well. Summat aint right here and I aint picking up the tab for someone elses fun"!! Add into that I had a degree and a decent job, yet at 3.5 times salary (not sure where I got that nugget from, but it was set in stone in my mind that it was the point at which a sensible mortgage started to become unsensible) I was nowhere near being able to afford anything even half reasonable. I had a small deposit too. So I noticed something was very very wrong indeed back then and after that, started trying to find out why. I was especially interested in how people with hardly any deposit and a worse job than me were affording the places they were. What do you know, scratching below the surface you started to see what was happening with lending criteria etc. Not a single peerson I knew was discussing house prices in a negative manner, or concerned like me that lending was getting stupid, it was all just "buy buy buy, cant go wrong with bricks and mortar etc etc". I decided to keep out and understand more. I then discovered this site...... And here I am today. Very large deposit/possible even cash purchase. Still waiting, but still making sure I get on and enjoy life. If nothing else, I console myself with just how much flexibility a wedge in the bank gives me, with regards job tolerance, ability to move quickly around the country/abroad etc, never counting the pennies a week before pay day. All sorts of stuff. I feel much less like buying a house this year than I did last!! Only real concern is my savings getting wiped out. Never thought about investing elsewhere as I assumed when the bubble went, it would go down very fast, so no need. Just get best return possible in the bank, stay liquid and be ready to act. Then came the big game changer. Zero interest rates and money printing. What should have already been about done and dusted has been put on permanent life support it seems. So I'll just keep renting and saving and having stress free fun. And if everything Ive worked for gets wiped out through currency collapse/hyper inflation, well, you know what they say about people who have nothing left to loose...........

Giore man, that's the only thing stopping me going out and murdering MPs, banksters and BTLers!! Quick, pass the bong, I feel murderous venom rising up again!!

I got the chop from Bombarier in a wave of redundances about 4 years ago. A big problem with the place was getting the old British Rail workers to adapt to change. It could also have given the public sector a run for it's money in terms of waste and layers of unnecessary management, making any quick decisions an impossibility. Decent canteen though. Derby is really copping for it currently though, what with this, the problems with Toyota, Thorntons who manufacture there and Egg.

But inflation is eating away at this and for many, things are already uncomfortable as they are.

So how can we be near a nominal low, if real wages continue to fall and the lending taps are not switched back on again?

"Pathfinder" Prescott!!

Tesco chicken in white sauce. A mere (not very) solid English pound the other week. Start of this week, £1.28.

At least they will have one to look after them. Unless I have some very kind nephews and nieces, when I can no longer look after myself, I thihk I'll be best off finding a Dignitas way out of things.

I applied for this last week, hence my interest. Nothing out there to touch it at the momnet, which would have made me a bit more concerned if it was available to everyone.

Is Santander any less safe than the rest?

Well, like I say, it was a mates Dad and friend of the family. I know he knows though, and I know that he knows that I know that he knows etc! Plus when my folks saw him later, they said he best get it on the market sharpish, as I'd told them that it is only going to get worse from here. He didn't just laugh this time and it is on the market I will be watching with interest!

Christmas 2007. A mates Dad was off to work in the Far East, pretty much until retirement. I asked what he was going to do with his house. He was narked off as he thought it was worth £250K, but it was valued at £220K. So Narked off he was he decided he was going to keep it until it reached the £250K he believed it was worth. I warned him to get shot now as a housing crash was on the way. Without even istening to my side of things, he laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And wouldn't listen to anything I had to say about it. Now fast forward 4 years. After long voids and a problem tenant, he has decided to sell. The same agents value the place. They tell him to put it on at £170, in the hope of getting 160K!! Plus something needs doing with the ecntral heating which will cost a couple of grand. Wow, if you thought he was narked off in 2007, you should see him now! Obviously I didn't say 'I told you so' and I'm sure he has erased from memory my ignored advice. Oh well.

I have just opened one of these accounts today, being as I turn 35 in just a few months I figured I'd best get in there pronto. I noticed in the small print it said that if you deposite more than £300 in one month, they reserve the right to close the account. However, I explained that I would want to stick up to £30k in the account in one hit, after my £5k deposite and she didn't seem to think there would be a problem with that. She did look at fix rate bonds (which I wouldn't have taken her up on!) but said that even then, putting £30K odd in this account would still give me a better rate of return. I need to put the initial deposite in via cheque and then set up the standing order for the following month. However, it seems the only way I can get the big lump in is to increase my standing order to that level for one month and then returning back to the 100-300 figure again for the next month. Is this how others on here transfered their buig lump in, or where there other option ie did they allow an addditional cheque payment to be made into it?

Did you hear Nicky Campbell yesterday morning trying to absolve Moron Clown from blame for the national deficit by insinuating it was the 'world financial crisis' to blame??? Luckily Fransis Maude just cut him down by stating that was incorrect and it was unequivocally the Clowns fault. So Campbell was either being extremely disingenous in trying to mislead the general public, or else he is just another one who doesn't understand what the national deficit is. Either way, it is appalling someone so biased, or so clueless, is allowed to be a mouthpiece on the subject on a supposedly impartial channel.

And how long ago was it interest rates were slashed to 0.5% to supposedly increase our exports?

What doesn't help is all those properties you see on Rightmove which have failed to sell at auction and are returned back onto the market with the same unrealistic price tag it had before it went to auction! Banks being allowed not to crystalise a loss is keeping a lot of property out the hands of buyers and/or renters. I used to be anti-squatters, but I really hope people start thinking "hey, why am I paying ever increasing rent when that property over there has been empty for over a year? Get your bags packed love, we are moving!!"

It's called 'climate change' now. That way you cannot refute it, as the climate will always change, whereas 'global warming' was obviously a load of ********.