North London Rent Girl

Ditto in Devon - it's amazing that young people down there are taking this lying down - they're being robbed blind!

Why especially the women?!! What has that got to do with anything?!! Might I suggest that, just as when people do their backwoodsman the-end-is-nigh-and-the-black-helicopters-are-a'comin' bit on here it makes the site less credible, it also risks not being taken seriously when random hostility is pinged off about women. It makes you look like a bunch of cranky bitter blokes. Honestly. And I tell lots and lots of people about this site, as, probably, do a lot of other women who read the site. I only mention this because the thread yesterday about women became really vicious towards the end and it would be a pity if that spilled over onto other threads. Hate nulabor, incidentally, hate them, I really hate them. My hatred, though, is not gender-specific. Or race-specific. Of course, because I'm not bonkers. And I hate the Guardian, with its adverts for 10 grand sofas for awful nulaborites to put in their million-quid boho townhouses when it should be reporting the lack of affordable housing and how poor people's aspiration to own, well, they may as well not bother having any. Just to pick up on another thread from yesterday. The BBC is not that much better, although it's not as shameless as ITV. I don't think the housing market is to blame for people drinking too much, though, that's a step too far. Nobody makes them. They might be driven by a broader sense of emptiness and existential angst that knaws at the edges of their minds day in, day out, but we all have one of those at some time or another and it's up to us how we deal with it, isn't it? Why don't you lot with your tory sensibilities insist that these people take responsiblity, too? You'd have no truck with it being said that poor alcoholics drink because they're poor. What's the difference with these people?!

I think I missed the first bit, too - Alistair wotnot at the end said 'what an interesting argument, I don't think Gilligan won it', so someone called Gilligan must have put the case for renting first - maybe andrew? Couldn't find a website for it.

My cat is quite financially savvy and has been saying for ages that far too many people are mewing.

Brilliant - thanks, will check that out.

Chavez is afraid that the US is going to assassinate him and/or invade Venezuela. He and just about everyone else think that the US was behind the attempted coup against him in 2002 and he believes that his assassination was ordered for the first time then. A few weeks ago a right-wing Christian nut called Pat Robertson called on US TV for Chavez to be assassinated and the adminsitration refused to condemn what he had said. Some believe Robertson to have been acting as an organ of propaganda, planting the seed of an idea that Chavez is going to be killed. Before this is dismissed as a crazy conspiracy theory, as a strange number of ideas seem to be these days, note that last week the FBI shot dead a bloke called Ojeda Rios in Puerto Rico - regarded by the US as a terrorist but by many people in Puerto Rico as the head of their independence movement. The US takes people out without a second thought, whenever it suits them. And that latest assassination, of course, adds to the massive anti-US sentiment in the region. Anyway, Chavez dumping the dollar very likely says a lot more about politics in the Americas than the state of the dollar (not that it isn't in a bad way). That's my understanding of the situation, anyway.

I don't want to suggest that what you've said needs the say-so of the mainstream press but they are beginning to cotton on - there was an article in the Independent today saying that, erm, actually sipps isn't going to be that big a deal. Would post the link for the start of the article on their website but am being der-brained and can't find it. It's in the main section of the newspaper, if anyone has that.

What's saccharine about being poor as feck!

Yeah and that's an average - I bet the cleaners got a fiver - so what did the top dogs get. Yeuch. Edit. oh, being der-brained. It says in the very next paragraph that someone's getting 10 million quid. Others getting 12 million. Oh god, and Lehman Brothers are getting big rises - I know someone who works there and they're just awful. Actually it's quite comforting - lots of cash but a complete and utter tosser who only the most tolerant of people can stand and nobody at all actively likes. Don't you just love the anonymity of the internet!!

I second that! Also the majority of agents of all descriptions, particularly estate agents, of course, and Microsoft - never going to happen, sadly, but I've had to install Windows 98 again this week because it's such a rubbish system that it just chews itself into imbecility every once in a while. And before anyone says try XP I have it on my laptop and it meddles with the voice dictation programme I use so I'm going to swap it for the mildly less crap Win98. How, how did they get so big? Damn their eyes. Yes, so Microsoft, agents and the shitty people making the fur coats. Not French car companies, for heaven's sake. Not only do they make decent cars they also have cracking adverts that I, who can't sit through an ad break without having a ridiculous tantrum, can bear to watch. What's wrong with Renault? Why does it offend? Is it that the French automotive industry has survived even though (or perhaps because?) firms (Renault and Citroen at least) remain mainly in state hands? Does that offend because what's left of our pathetic car industry is owned by the Japanese, the Yanks, the Germans and the spoilt children of Russian mafia bosses, sorry, businessmen? But we can all agree that Foxtons should go to the wall. Hey, and it really might!

And we know better than to think that they wouldn't have the sheer effing brass neck!

That's a very inscrutable post, Tao - not sure I got the question! I just can't stop watching this thing - I'm meant to be working but it's like a car crash. I can't decide whether I want that woman's villa - which now looks amazing, by the way - to sell. I have watched very few property programmes in the past few years but now they're getting interesting. I wonder if they're going to all have jolly names that follow on from the property-ramping shows. Here, from 'Home in the Sun' (wasn't it?) to 'Trapped in the Sun'. It's only a matter of time before one comes out called 'Burnt in the Sun'. What next? 'Location, Location, Location' laughingly renamed 'Eviction, Eviction, Eviction'? It's all just a larf, isn't it? They're so EVIL! Well, she's sold her villa and she looks so happy - can only be relieved for her, really, bless her cotton socks and her crazy financial logic. Heck, maybe there's something to her magical money thinking. Let's hope not because there's a lot of sellers out there thinking 'it must be worth this much, we need the money'.

Yeah, me, too. There's something about the wide-eyedness of it all. How can my villa not be worth 270 grand? It must be, I need the money. Now it's about land requisitioning for development. How come the whole world isn't like the UK? How can they do this to us? We were going to have trees, a patio and a pool, a vegetable garden and terrace - "but the developer wants it all, and more". Blink, blink. "The most upsetting thing ... is that they will only be entitled to a tiny little bit of compensation." Thing is, they seem like a bright couple. And really quite nice. "Compulsory purchase doesn't just happen in Spain, it can happen in any country." No, really? Shocking - johnny foreigner not playing by the (i.e. our) rules again. Surely some of the programmes that wildly talked up buying abroad mentioned the risk of having your land taken away? No? Did the bloke who's presenting this present one of the bullish property programmes? I bet he did. "Over the past few years Brits have been paying over the odds" - yes, you evil git, because of property programmes!! It's like cheer them on the way up, jeer at them on the way down. I mean, my sympathy for them is limited but I do have some. Lambs to the slaughter. Edit - just to illustrate how relative the whole property law thing is - have you ever tried explaining our leasehold/freehold system to someone from the US? They get that 'it can't be true' look in their eye that we're seeing on this show and start repeating what you're saying to themselves. It's quite entertaining.

It was Ghandi, wasn't it, who, when asked what he thought of Western Civilization, said he thought it was a great idea! I'm glad someone's brought this up - I find all the backwoodsman stuff a bit offputting. Not to say there isn't sense in it and not that the site shouldn't be a forum for discussions of broader issues - I've learned loads about all kinds of things on here - but like many HPCers, I'm sure, I've mentioned this site to a lot of people and I'd hate them to come in on a day when the top threads are about starting gun-toting self-sufficient communities in Cheriton Fitzpayne or what-have-you. That said, ahem, there was an interesting programme last night on the World Service about how things are going to look in terms of economic might in 2050. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programm...mentary_1.shtml It's very measured stuff - shouldn't have anyone reaching for the AK47.

I like the STRs. Easy to say because I don't actually know any but apart from the fact that they started this site (I assume - didn't they?) it's exceedingly refreshing to meet people who have actually realised whilst in the position of owning that prices are bonkers. Most home owners have such a heavy emotional investment in believing that their place is worth thirty million squid that you just really can't have a conversation with them about it at all. And of course their interests completely coincide with our interests. It's good for us that they've sold and it's good for them that we're not buying. It's all very cosy. Unless I'm missing something, which is entirely possible.

Erm, no nulabour fan me, believe me, but wasn't it Thatcher who liberated the credit market in the 80s? Poor old lawson trying desperately to control inflation by putting interest rates up to - what was it, 16%? - while the newly be-credit-carded nation pumped more and more money into the economy with every swipe of the visa? This government's shit, Thatcher was shitter. Now, hang on, wasn't there someone in the middle there? Oh well, can't remember. Never mind.

House prices aren't the only thing in the world, for heaven's sake. You need to get out more. Sure, if the UK was covered in the kind of urban sprawl Elizabeth's talking about houses would be cheaper - so what?!

I'm an FTB - or will be c. 2008. Could afford something scuzzy somewhere horrible if I was willing to commit to living at the end of my financial tether for the next several years but, hmm, funnily enough...!

"Tacky stickers" should be the nickname for something to do with house prices falling. Perhaps sellers who refuse to lower their price? "I put an offer in on this flat but the seller's a right tacky sticker."

Crikey, the moonbat is now recommending we put people who haven't broken the law behind bars? This blokes intelligence knows no beginning. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You're missing his point. He's saying that he's only not breaking the law because our laws are crap - our laws should be better; if they were he would be breaking them! He's talking about the introduction of corporate criminal liability - for killing people, harm to people's health, the environment etc. Bhopal, these people suffering from pesticide exposure, that sort of thing. You've elided the main bit. "But it seems to me that in a fair world – a world in which human life was valued by our legislators – he would not now be contemplating the leadership of Her Majesty’s Opposition. He would be behind bars." Ken Clarke, along with Boris Johnson and Michael Portillo (ok, not any more, but I still wouldn't trust him), are the dangerously affable, avuncular face of a really shitty right wing. Can't believe people are thinking of voting Tory. You must all be well under 30. Or so old you're senile.

Spacious main living area boasts unique full-width, floor-to-ceiling, security-enabled, 'rustic' door opening onto unusually tiered garden-style frontage extending to excellent implement storage accommodation to side. edit - damn - how do you copy that dratted picture over?

Spoon Should I buy my holiday bucks tomorrow morning or wait until after the announcement of the national figure? Thanks for any advice. If you don't bill me I won't sue you!!

But but... ! Going into the fourth year in this house we gave in and allowed the landlord their first ever rent increase - a whole 2% (£10 a week on 485 squid - what's that?). We could have refused again but it just seemed churlish. The rent on this already reasonably priced house has, after all, fallen in real terms over the past 3 years - by some amount that I can't quite be bothered to work out. We'll maybe give them another 2% in three years' time. If we feel like it. Dunno where these rents are going up but my part of North London it ain't.

It really is - the burden between personal allowance and 30-odd grand is totally disproportionate. The 10% band should be increased to 20 grand, the 22% band should go up to forty. The LibDem's 50% band starting at 100 grand is a good idea, then there should be 5% increments every 250,000 up to a million squid. Quick chorus of 'If I ruled the world'...

After all, this is your actual "detached park home". For the time being you should be aspiring to a semi-detached park home, maybe a terraced park home or even something in one of those park home high-rises.