a j
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Posts posted by a j
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I stayed in Cardiff Bay a couple of weekends ago in a major newbuild development (Century Wharf). I know many on here don't like such places but personally I'm happy to live in a decent flat. The site was a gated community - very impresive in some ways but the area around looked decisively dodgy. I walked into Cardiff centre past the Somali community centre and local council estate in the afternoon and made sure I got a taxi back in the evening.
The major thing which struck me was the number of warnings about crime and car theft from the underground car parks. Its fine having big fences and a security guard at the entrance, but what happens when a struggling BTL'r rents out to some local characters? Would you fancy living it your executive box with the local winos sat on the expensively laid out lawns?
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I was on the 'phone to Direct Line a few days ago and the girlie I spoke to told me that she was a building surveyor undergraduate who was, I assume, working for DL to pay her way through college. I thought.... oh dear.
To be fair she will look less flaky that the average arts graduate when she applies for a real job. I remember looking for graduate employment in 1992 - not a pleasant experience. The current crop of hopefulls will have lots more competition and much higher debts.
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Barrets problems have come from excessive debt- how many VC backed companies can we expect to go under in the downturn?
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I remember property prices soaring 1998-1999-2000-2001 and thinking, Christ this is madness..............
And here we are in 2008.
It's gonna be a bloodbath
Cheers Mattsa, I remember thinking much the same and thought I was the only fool out there. I'd put my money on big falls - 98 prices (adjusted for inflation), possibly lower. This may take years of small nominal falls, or come as a short sharp shock. Quite apart from the impact of interest rates and the difficulty young people (especially graduates) are having saving a deposit, current prices and income multiples make no allowance for the change in the world of work where the job/ career for life has gone and we should contemplate time out of the workforce for job hunting and retraining.
There is a lot of discussion on here about the effect of low interest rates on house prices, I think we also need to consider that there has been a ten year period where jobs have been very easy to find.
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Only if you have children it seems, if you don't you're screwed.
There are enough people with children for tax credits to impact the employment market - especially for single mother friendly positions. With little marginal benefit from a higher income people look for flexible hours, an easy location to get to and reliable, non too stressful work. A nightmare for the childless looking for a break in life.
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There is a horrible glass ceiling to accountants, many of them never get more than 23K at best FCCA/FCA ie 7 years post qualified which means in effect + 3 training years + 3 university years ie 13 years to get that measly amount, which is why when I qualify in 9 months time I'm going to leave the accounting industry and go do something else I have lined up. My qualification is 'locked in' and I can use it to do other things,
What! Where do you live? Its pretty much impossible to recruit a newly qualified 25 year old qualified accountant for £35k in much of the country. If there is a glass ceiling its a long way above that level.
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Well, she's paying for thick-as-sh*t chavs to churn out kids through her taxes, so technically she is supporting the uk's "future".
I swear in 10 years time all we'll be left with is an illiterate, good-for-nothing pile of chavs and a bunch of very wealthy 50-60 year olds.
Well said. What kind of society are we building when the disfunctional are paid to breed?
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Seems to me that there is far more to this than the issue of basic pay...if the drivers do indeed need to work overtime to keep up with the cost of living then they have a valid complaint.
Reference the Grangemouth refinery dispute, although pay was a significant issue, it was the whittling away at pensions and other perquesites that motivated workers to take action.
Both the Grangemouth and Shell workers earn notably more than similar positions. As is typical in Britain we complain about incomes when it would be far easier to target costs. Why not campain for more land to be developed thus reducing the price of property, and associated prices from comercial premises?
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As a woman of likely child bearing age (33), I find it harder to gain employment because employers do not want to risk hiring someone who could become pregnant and cost them a hefty maternity package. But ironically enough in these times, not only are women more discriminated against because of the generous benefits that they are able to claim by law for maternity leave, but you also need both parents working full time in order to survive economically. So the net effect is for some women that they have to go out to work instead of having children but are also more likely to be discriminated against from being employed.
I find the lack of discussion of this topic both in the media and society pretty amazing. I've read countless articles about 'glass ceilings' and pay differentials, but no reference to the fact that a woman aged, say, 28-35 will have a much harder time than a man in finding a new job, and particularly a management level position.
Do you think the rules have gone to the point where discrimination becomes inevitable?
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That is still some pretty mental money, especially as some of those are just old terraced houses with no parking !!
Amazing isn't it. All look lovely inside, but have poor parking and most are a fair treck from the Thameslink. Who do you think the core buyer for such places is? I'd suspect these houses are a trade up from a two bed London flat. Will St Albans house prices only go down when London does?
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I have a 2 bed terrace in Reading, we decorated it from top to bottom, put in a new patio and put it on the market in January, ...
Mabbie, What part of Reading are you in?
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Once calibrated to a given input device (read: keyboard) it can accurately transcribe keystrokes with an accuracy of around 95% from an distance of 50 meters using a directional microphone
Let me translate - my software fails 5% of the time. Hmmm....
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Current thoughts anyone? My perusals of Rightmove are showing a much better quality of properties in the £240 - 270k range (ie buy below £250k) in the St Albans area. I also noticed that many ads state that properties are ideal for 'first time buyers/ downshifters'. A few months ago the ads were all aimed at BTL.
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I am concerned by some of the comments that follow some really good posts dealing with what is fast becoming a serious crisis for our country. Perhaps the most serious economic crisis since the last great bubble burst in the 18th Century.
The personal comments made about Krusty and Fern, for example, go too far into the sexual IMO and if the journos and politicians are visiting this site to see what people are thinking they will not be impressed by the school boy Italian suppositories.* Remember, some of us are in the mainstream media spotlight now--FP et. al.--and they might quote some of the posts to discredit the cause. I think Kirstie has already alluded to such.
Public figures are fair game when it comes to attacking their ideas but the highly personal stuff, especially the sexual comments, are unnecessary and should, I think, be banned.
Sorry if I may seem to have gone Victorian, and I know I have made the odd bad taste comment myself, but I am feeling far more worried today about the future than I was when this HPC thing got started a few years ago. It is now becoming a social tragedy of the worst kind.
RB
Well said. I think allowing frustrations to overflow demeans the forum. I dislike the type of comments you have noted. They add nothing to the discussion and make the membership appear infantile.
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I don't know much about it, but I think it's to be US produced, which means it will probably consist of a few nice set pieces, a simple and untaxing plot, very clearly identified 'bad guys', corny dialogue, and Blake will win the girl in the end.
If its made in Britain will they change the plot to avoid having a convicted paedophile as the lead character?
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Something a lot of people forget though is that there is life outside of London. And hospitals. And post delivery jobs.
So £13k multiplied by a sensible amount is a push, but as I have seen pointed out before, when was a single person ever able to buy a property? Get two people together and you have £26k x 3.5 = £91k which will get a flat/small house in many areas of the UK.
I do feel sorry for today's FTBs, as the prices are silly, but they do need to get a hold on reality as well. When we first bought, back in 1994, we had saved and saved and saved for 2-3 years. Dual incomes, no kids. No going out, no takeaways, no holidays, no toys, goodies or other knick-knacks. We saved and could then afford a deposit to buy somewhere. Many of today's FTBs are single, and expect to carry on their lifestyle of gadgets, partying and foreign holidays and expecting 100%+ mortgages and/or house prices to come down to help them achieve that.
Steve, where did you buy? My recollection of 1994 prices in West Yorks is that factory workers were buying on a single income.
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Sheeple!!!
Yep thats what they were.
Its a bit like drugs and smoking. Do you feel sorry for the ones who accepted the freebie and got hooked only to hen be enslaved to the drug, going onto harder and harder narcotics? Do you direct your anger at those who provided them with that first fix? And what about the friends that egged them on?
My feeling is that the latter, the friends, are to blame, but they themselves have been hooked by the drug. The dealer (banker) though rotton to the core, is only acting in the way you would expect, deal with them at your own peril. And what of the poor sole, who found themselves addicted (to debt!)? Maybe they only really have themselves to blame.
Hi Topher
Hear hear. I smoke - I blame no-one but myself. My choice and my failing. The people who have borrowed too much also made their own decisions.
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Can't drop what you don't have, this dude gives me the creeps big time, really, and I'm blowed if I can explain why.
He has that 'predator' look.
He has the annoying loud, arrogrant ***** personality. Ive worked with a few people who came accross just like him. They seem to progress in life beyond any level of ability.
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It's sickening - even more sickening when you think it was valued at £195K more this time last year and we had an offer for 65K more than it is on for now...Plus our mortgages on the 3 properties add up to £3.5K pcm. Ozzie pay won't cover that...
Further down the same thread:
At least we know we can do it but it is not what we want because we won't have an income when we move over initially as we don't quite know what to do yet. OH wanted to buy land and either sell as blocks or build and sell but without the money to get started it would be hard. Definitely don't want any loans or anything In fact don't think I ever want to buy again but may change my mind.>>>That's the way I feel. Don't want to be trapped like this again...
Daughter going with boyfriend both as PR's. They were Augustees but early on so got their visa before it suddenly stopped. They are having 3 weeks in Thailand, 1 week in Singapore and then flying to Perth, buying a camper van and travel all round doing nothing. They saved lots of money so as to travel a bit and hopefully will meet up with us when/if we get there.
>>>Sounds fantastic. fanulous opportunity. Wish We'd gone for it when we were young.
I wonder if any of your old viewers will come back now with the reduction.
Just had a look on that property snake at our house and it shows a reduction already. Lots of them in this area too.
>>>That's a horrible site! Can't find our house on it though. Phew. There are several in our area which have reduced as much as we have. It's frightening.
Keep your chin up and think of how great it will be and how much more you will appreciate it when you get there.
Nicky xx
Significant or what! HO regret owning and are considering never buying again! Propertysnake to blame. I bet Tom feels guilty!
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Sorry, but that's just so f***ing moronic
Perhaps this is about natural selection. The foolish and the greedy get hammered.
Its nothing like natural selection! The inept and foolish can still have children, and having children gives access to council houses, tax credits and the whole benefits caboodle. Where in the normal evolutionary process do unproductive members of society have more children?
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Just seen another 2 new posts on MSE from punters wanting to sell to use the equity to clear their debts.
This is another side effect of the house price bubble. Who the hell wants to take on someone elses debt by buying at an over inflated price, so you become the mortgage debt slave and they end up renting and debt free.
What a bloody liberty.
It's a strange world folks!!
A year ago they would have taken MEW. Could be an interesting trend...
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well i just read that the average wage is £1000
im sure anyone could save £5000 a year here. so there is still a BIG advantage in staying.
no large exodus imo
When do the poles get the right to work in Germany? Lower costs, Euro pay packets and a shorter trip home should temp them there dont you think?
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I can't say that I find city types particularly to my taste but Boom Boom seems to be missing the plot completely. For all that many seem to be excessively paid no-one sensible can claim they are other than hardworking and talented individuals. The pushy sales types will do fine in telesales (just a lesser paid version of what they do now) or running market stalls (plenty of opportunities in a recession). The more academic, the best of our maths and science graduates can move back into science or IT. The people who really suffer will be those who supplied services to the cash rich but time poor and recipients of government spending when the tax take reduces.
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Let's not forget, the media are there to chip away - they usually come with third class brains and frist class chips on their shoulders - oh and massive gobs...........
They basically do not understand the whole economic process - cause, effect, all the shenanigans that te financial community try to keep as obscure aso possible. Most have only just learned the words "interest rate", and think their mortgage is directly related to the BoE...........................
Perhaps they do understand some economics. The profitability of newspapers has been seriously hit in recent years due to the move to the internet by both advertisers and readers. It won't take much of a recession to destroy advertising spend - they are afraid for their jobs.
Jaw Dropping Rental Yield Expectations! - £1,800 Pcm!
in House prices and the economy
Posted
Note the lack of interior pictures - must be a bombsite if the exterior is the selling point!