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tim123

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Posts posted by tim123

  1. I am going to view a few properties in N.Wales this weekend, looking for 2 bed places around 500pcm

    Not rented through a LA before (all been private landlords), so just wondering if anyone can advise me on the following:

    Most want an 'application fee' of between £150-200, non-refundable in event of changing my mind/references declined - is this normal or excessive? How much should I be paying for this?

    Most say I will be liable for the landlords furnishings so I need to take out contents insurance for them - is this correct?

    Are you really seeing places where the furnishing is good enough to be worth insuring?

    When I looked in N Wales last year I only saw one place that was 'nice' (an OO going abroad for a year) - which I didn't get.

    Everywhere else was a dump that I wasn't very impressed with. Finding nice accomodation in that locality was really difficult IME (and most unexpected). There were a couple of unfurnished flats that were OK.

    Sorry to be such a downer

    tim

  2. per month?

    And he achieved this by squashing as many rooms into the house as possible.

    He should have turned the ground floor into a nice 2 bed, instead he made it into a three bed by dividing the main bedroom. He called them "all doubles" but they were tiny, about 7 ft by 10ft.

    And on the upper floor he should have extended into the loft with a big master/en-suite for a nice three bed. Instead he made the loft space into two of his tiny doubles and a toilet squashed into a corner, with the main floor having three tiny rooms (as on the ground) for a total of 5 bedrooms.

    He thought that this was going to get him more rent. Bon't buy it myself.

    tim

  3. She must have had acres of Knot Weed to get a bill that size. It's a bad, invasive plant, but you can do the job yourself if you're persistent and thorough.

    http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles0604/...se_knotweed.asp

    Apparently, had she had the infected soil removed, which is the normal method, it would have been 600 tonnes of soil.

    So yes, it was badly infected.

    (they cleared it using a new technique of "cleaning" the soil in situ and putting it back)

    tim

  4. I also understand that the UAE (inparticular Dubai) was looking at tourism as a major contributor to its economy once the oil wells ran dry. With things the way they are throughout Europe (where many of the tourist travelled from) I can't see that exactly working out.

    And it isn't simply targetting tourism that's (likley to be) wrong.

    Dubai has been targeting high end tourism, with half the hotel rooms in the city in the Super luxury class at up to 1000 dollars a night.

    It is common for rooms to include "personal butler to attend to your every need".

    Given that Dubai is just too far from the USA to attract merkins, just how many people are there in Europe who want that level of service when on holiday?

    tim

  5. Thinking along the lines of it continuing as is, barring any other financial catastrophe, does anyone think that we might have a really prolonged bottom? Continuing the extrapolation that would give you, say, a bottom at the start of 2010, then it's quite easy to extend the line so you've got a plateau that lasts until at least the start of 2011 until the prices begin to pick up again.

    The last "bottom" lasted 5 years (93-98). I personally can't see this one turning back up in 2 or 3 weeks. It'll be at least 2013 before houses start to rise again IMHO.

    tim

  6. I'd previously suggested the crash might be 2-pronged - there could be people snapping up what they hope is a bargain as things start to calm a bit, then there could be a second bigger fall, as someone else suggested above. Pure speculative guesswork from me, of course. But when you've got worries about banks and stock markets, some people will sink it into a real thing, even if that real thing still looks to be bubble priced. It's very very hard to see how prices could rise from here, but they might not move that much for a while before prong 2 kicks in.

    I agree.

    I looked at this auction and thought that most of the properties were overpriced. There were a few that were fair, but they were all "Sold Prior".

    Yet of the others, most seemed to sell and many at a 15-20% premium over the guide. I was surprised by this. There must be a reason for it, after all if you want to get a good price for your property, putting it in an auction a week before Christmas doesn't seems like the best way to achieve this.

    I can only think that it is, as The Last Bear said, there are some people who think that auction prices achieved now will be as low as they go. This does not mean that private treaty sales prices will stop falling as IME it is rare to find a house new to the market that isn't still priced "to sell" at the 2007 price :rolleyes:

    tim

  7. even within my city (brighton) there are huge fluctuations

    sea-front flats sell for £400k, however they only rent for around £900pcm. There's a real ceiling of around £1000pcm for 2 bed flats

    As the previous poster said, there's no "hope value" to the renter.

    Renters aren't prepared to pay a 50% premium "for the view" because it's actually worth nothing to them. Buyers are prepared to pay this premium because they hope that it will increase in value when they sell.

    (though some of the owners at Gun Wharf Quay seem to think that they can buck this rule)

  8. everything should be based around supply and demand.

    Rents were traditionally 20->50% less than the cost of a I/O mortgage.

    Your view of history is different to mine.

    Rents were *traditionally* twice the cost of an I/O mortgage, that's why FTB's wanted to climb onto the owning ladder and why, at 12% yields, BTL became popular.

    Rents have only been less than the cost of the mortgage for about the last 5 years and I for one don't call that a "traditional" length of time.

    tim

  9. Is there an easy way to get a list of Repo-ed properties around the country?

    I've recently missed out on a couple of decent deals by not being quick enough and wanted to know how I could get in earlier.

    I've been looking at auction listings in the past two weeks, but the ones that get this far have done so for a reason, all the decent stuff is "sold prior" and pulled.

    My lack of any geographical requirement (anywhere within 1 and a half hours train ride of London will do) makes registering with EAs impractical ad my price range (anything from 20 to 200K) makes using RightMove unwieldy.

    Are there any more targeted methods?

    tim

  10. I saw that, on the Allsop website. However, I did not see any which did not meet reserve, so assumed that 'withdrawn' was a cover-up for unsold. Whatever, the results look pretty dire for the auctioneers, who have had good selling rates in the past. Next sale Wednesday.

    I was watching the "live" results on the internet as I had an interest in a couple of properties. I can assure you there were (and still are) a fair number marked as "withdrawn" long before it was their turn to have been bid on.

    Though you are right that not may were otherwise unsold. Quite a few (including the ones that I was looking at) went for a large amount over guide. I'm hoping that this won't continue :-(

    tim

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