middleway

Coming up to 40... bought in 1995, 3 bed semi (probate sale job) saved the deposit by living at home rent free for a year after uni The key differences between then and the last few years are as follows; 1. Whilst we borrowed as much as they would lend us it was only 2.5 joint salary and they kept banging on about can you afford it at 13% IR's the whole high interest rate risk was still very much burned into the psyche of all concerned I was working in a call centre and now wife was a lab technician and we could buy a 3 bed semi in a nice part of leeds so the diffenence today is striking, i noticed it has just sold recently for close to 4X the price we bought it 2. received wisdom was to offer around 90% of the asking price so we did and got it for 95% 3. was on an IO mortgage with a whizz bang "PEP repayment vehicle" flogged to us by the halifax which has performed slighlty worse than burying the money under a tree 4. you didn't feel the need to, or there wasn't the available credit to fill the place up with new "stuff" We took in a couple of mates for lodgers so we could save up for central heating and do the place up second hand fridge and freezer from the paper, put a second hand carpet in one of the bedrooms, Was a probate sale so we made an offer for a few bits of furniture and an old wooden tv left behind. We have only just thrown out the bed left behind by the owners! 5. nobody used the word "property" Made the next move in 2004 paying a stupid price for a 3 bed detached in harrogate Laughed at the mortgage advisor when they told me how much they were willing to throw at me and promptly borrowed what I thought we could afford the thing that struck me (and has always struck me) is the financial illitercy of everyone and I mean everyone I talked to who would say "oooooh youve done well, you made 100K on that house" so there's me moving in to a house that cost 1.7 times more than the place I moved out of, but my mortgage payments trippled.

Susanna Reid = hot

I manage the account we have with a major UK retailer and so visit their head office almost weekly, 2 ladies in their fifties in reception been there since the year dot,they know who you are, they call the person you are meeting, have a quick chat etc Turn the other morning recently, oh no you need to sign in there now, touch screen machines, take your photo, print off a pass, auto call the person you are meeting. One of the ladies says, "I guess you won't be seeing me here anymore"

wish I'd written that My wife doesn't know I've had 2 very big payrises in the last few years, I don't spend it, don't even think about it, just shovel it on the mortgage. Mate of mine on the other hand earns far more then me (I am guessing 60 to 80k range), after his second child was born he admitted he MEWED so he could make the 6 months worth of mortgage payments, whilst his wife was off work & still paying off the ubiquitous Hello magazine wedding everybody seems to have these days I have 3 kids, wife off work at the moment, still saving money, I don't buy sh*t I dont need.

Childcare vouchers....maybe

I have a certain degree of symathy for the 'bright house'/ ocean finance consumer they have been subsumed into a 'have it all' society, to which their perceived self worth is increasingly measured in possessions. From that standpoint if your pay is hopelessly out of kilter with your aspirations, you can either, beg, borrow or steal Two are illegal, but the other one of these is positively encouraged by the state.

Channel 4 dispatched starting now Christmas on Credit I assume the usual depressing parade of the financially illiterate

The residents of Number 42 having watched back to back episodes of sarah beeny...sudenly have an Idea!!! "Here love, you know that MEWED extension on our house we have planning permission for? .... ...lets call it 42a! a highly desirable 2 bedroom townhouse" Congratulations....! you have actually borrowed money to simultaneously devalue your own end of terrace into a mid terrace and are going to take a bath on your highly desirable 2 bedroom townhouse which surely must have been worth every penny of the 137K you were originally asking ....however unbeleivably you can snap it up for offers over £105K now http://www.dacres.co.uk/serve_file.php?file=..%2Frps%2Fdetails%2FHAR090480.PDF But theres more... whats this?....you turn up to view and ....oops! next to the estate agents board is another board "Must be Sold.com" auction, guide price 80K!! http://www.mustbesold.com/index.php?option=com_propertylab&task=showproperty&id=1379&perpage=20&start=0&order=&type=forsale&minprice=1&address5=&maxprice=&minbeds=0&auction_id=0&status=For%20Sale&live=0 I'm sure those offers over 105K must be piling in now...! #now de-listed from the estate agents website, presumably not best pleased by the negotiating rug being well and trully pulled from under them by the f*ckwitted owners

I live in Harrogate, and some houses are selling very fast.......but only the ones that are priced to sell* there are A LOT just sitting there for a Loooong time, clearly over priced, clearly buyers know this as they are not buying, and clearly ,if the vendor isn't inclined (or forced) to drop the price then stalemate. However this large unsold stock of overpriced / comedy asking price houses has caused short term stabilisation / HPI (and it's an almighty trap) *Those "priced to sell" are still waaay "overpriced" from the "3x earnings holy grail" but you just have to have comparative advantage, put it this way if you get 20 plumbers quoting a grand to fix your leaking toilet, the guy who asks for £700 gets the job, is this way over what the job is worth? yes.... do you still nead your toilet fixing?...yes, do you shell out £700?.....yes, are you happy about it?...no, do you have a choice?...no Setting aside QE, ZIRP, repossession holidays, The government can't hold the ring for ever, and people will start falling off the log, I think inflation will cause nominal rises eventually but not for sometime

Good plan, although I suspect the higher rate tax relief is going to go bye bye at some point to pay off Gordons borrowing, so needs factoring in. still worth doing I suspect & I might look into it myself for a bit of my mortgage

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ixrwO5Oqrk

O.K so theres this beaten up house up for auction last year, broken windows, overgrown garden, planning permission to convert into flats Sold at auction 12/09/2008 £350,000 Det. F No Map 141, Wetherby Road, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG2 7AA After it sold I honestly presumed it must be some cash buying 'romany' types when I saw the F*ck off stone pillars and the tacky wrought iron gates flanked by roman statuettes being lobbed in, fair play I thought if thats what you like best of luck to you Surely it can't be some amateur property developer looking to make a fortune?? ....Yep Just come on the market for offers OVER £550K Check it out at http://www.myringsestateagents.com/property-search Now by the looks of the photo they have spent a stupendous amount making it look like some kind of french regency era rococo theme park which 95% of people would probably want to knock off the price to rip it all out and re-decorate (don't be fooled by the photos this is in an incongrous setting to say the least 50 yards from a petrol station, 2 shops on it's left 'low rent' housing on it's right, pub, car dealers and a false teeth workshop over the road (yep) on THE busiest road in town if you are going to drop over 1/2 a mill on a house I would at least like some kind of nice location or am i missing something here? It's either a RIO or a Repo soon for sure

If you can't afford it at higher rates then perhaps you can't afford it? Call me old fashioned but when I first bought, apart from the 3 1/2 times verifiable income, you were made aware thet you should be sure you could afford it if the 7.5% rate went to say 10% or even 12% you could still afford it (albiet with a fair bit of belt tightening) If you, in your seemingly bullet proof job can't afford to buy at those kind of IR's then neither will the next man and prices will end up falling till you can. Simple supply and demand (and I'm not talking the 'pent up' kind of demand the VI's harp on about,) P.S babies aren't expensive, children are, but babies are definitely not (unless you spend a load of money on pointless baby stuff (300 pound 'travel systems' designer clothes and the like) You will probably save money initially as you never go out

Just come back from ASDA in Leeds, Man with camp chair sat outside his escort van with a 8 x 4 foot hand painted sign Joiner seeks work credit crunch rates 074*** ***** 12 years experienced tradesman Joinery, Tiling Desking, Plastering all work considered This echos the iconic hand painted 'will work for food' sign from the 1930's Got to admire the initiative of getting 'first mover advantage' before we see this up and down the country I think he should get a decent amont of work from this approach at this stage of the game Also admire (if that's the word) the sheer blind optimism of anyone who thinks this is the sort of economic environment to 'kick-start' house prices IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN We have a full staff meeting at 4pm today and all 'water cooler chat' is of a pay cut, so i'm sure we'll all be rushing out to pile into the housing market before prices start shooting up On another note, I am sure someone has mentioned this before, but there are a lot more roadside cafe vans these days is that some kind a redundancy payout purchase thing?

ASDA Store newly built in Chelmsley Wood as part of shopping centre development number of other units let..........................0

Signed on when I left Uni for a few weeks, chap interviewing me was taken aback when I went to shake his hand after we had finished I think he thought I was going to hit him or something

You've hit the nail on the head..... And this is why Broon should never be forgiven for what he's done I bought my first house for 50K on a joint income of 20K in 1996 2 1/2 times income because that is all they would lend you These were selling last year pre HPC for around £180K This ridiculous increase means that purely by an accident of birth someone in exactly the same position born 10 years later would never even come close to affording the same without saddling themselves with a mountain of debt (possibly on top of a hefty student loan) Labour party are supposed to be the party of equality, meritocracy all born equal 'blah blah blah' yet this f*ckwit chancellor turned PM has been blowing up a housing bubble of epic proportions for ten years So effectively punishing anyone who happens to be born at a particular time, or didn't have wealthy parents to stump up the deposit for their kids FTB purchase..... That's Socialism is it Gordon?

Now what do they say about not chasing the market down...... now down another 30K to £79950 that should "get it away" I'm sure the estate agent will have assured them... Death by a thousand cuts

Interestingly enough they had Johnny 'think of a number' Ball on radio 5 live explaining to the muppet presenter the difference between millions / billions / trillions / googols (sp?) etc in the context of the current round of Govt giveaways for the banks then he went off at a tangent about quantative easing the wiemer republic hyper inflation, wheelbarrows of reich marks etc.....sounded like a man with plenty in the bank worried McBroon is intent on inflating Zoe's inheritance away

In the heart of "Abbeville Village" http://www.kfh.co.uk/residential/sales/cla...nue/sw4/2027558 Was on for over a mill...no interest (suprise suprise) Was on for £995K...no interest Now down to £825K....no interest What would you consider a fair price for this...?

Scary Latest you tube post from Karl...check out the last 60 seconds especially he basically thinks the £ is proper f&cked http://uk.youtube.com/user/kdenninger

This thread is like being on MSE However my advice is....If you want kids do NOT put it off waiting for the right time, Our first was an 'accident' as we hadn't planned to have them for another couple of years..looking back, I consider it the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me, by the time you have got them out of nappies you will be in a nice AFFORDABLE house thinking the same thing

Hargreaves Landsdown

god knows why but for the first time in my life I bought shares in an individual company on Friday (cashed in a small fund a few months ago and have had it sat in a brokers scared to buy back in) I bought £2000 in anglo american, looking to trade the 'dips' for a bit of fun they are now up nearly 15% is 20% too greedy? (I am assuming they will fall again at the end of the week) mind you the trading fees are a bit of a killer aren't they??

Agree with the OP , I have am half way through a 5 year fix at 5%, but with 2 children under 4 my priority was ensuring I didn't get a massive IR hike whilst we are on one wage. Having said that isn't crowing over "look how much my payments have come down" that different to crowing "my house has increased in value by £XXX"