Olivier

Had a good laugh today at lunch with colleagues. I managed to drive the discussion to house prices. One the colleagues has bought 2.5 years ago and has been through the pain of remortgaging last september. He's now facing the prospect of negative equity with a significant level of stress. That said he should not have a need for moving (no new kid planned and 2 stable jobs) and even though his mortgage looks painful he should be fine. Another colleague said she had almost paid her mortgage. Bought 10 years ago, no need to worry for her. I stuned them by saying that I would have soon paid my mortgage too. They all know I'm renting so they asked why. In two minutes I explained them that a crash of 30-40% from peak prices would make me a potential cash buyer with no need at all to get a mortgage. Hence the mortgage paid! 50% of the table agreed that prices were too high and the remaining 50% kept on bringing in the "supply/demand" issue. Took me a good 15 minutes to debunk that myth. Don't know if they eventually agreed because they were bored or if they started to consider a potential different reallity but at least the 50% of "reasonable" colleagues were supporting my position.

Lots of local people will see that as a good news. All the youngs have to leave the Alps for the low lands as they are priced out. And when somebody dies, the inheritance tax makes it impossible to the family to keep the property/land and force them to sell to developpers or speculators. Good ridance...

I've got my HSBC debit card and John Lewis Mastercard both blocked because I've tried to order some goods on two websites I've been using every month in the past 2 years with the same cards. They said that they thought somebody was trying to use fraudulently my cards... BS... They running out of cash, full stop.