RibbleValleyRover

Agree with your list so far, and I live in the Ribble Valley myself currently. Other good villages are Hurst Green, Waddington and Downham. An alternative is a group of villages off the M61 Chorley exit, like Eccleston, Croston and Mawdsley.Or the other side of the M61 places like Wheelton, Brinscall, Brindle, Hoghton. All easy to commute to Manchester, but a different world for the evening/weekend.Good luck.

Certainly gone quiet in my area, sales are down to a trickle and mostly under £250k.The higher end stuff is stuck on the market for ages, some houses have been on for two years. Just recently a few more have come on, no doubt the vendors thinking we are in for a "recovery". The reality is that only motivated sellers are striking a deal and buyers are offering 10-20% off asking prices. Most agents have a list of offers that vendors will not even consider as they are too "low". This is compounded by the fact that vendors have been given highly optimistic valuations,in better times, and are loathe to accept less now. End result is a very limited market, although interestingly only one agent has closed down in Clitheroe (Purple Willow) and the rest are still okay, albeit with reduced hours, staff and concentrating on rentals.

We str in March 08, happy days, locked in at 6%plus and no worries Just over a year later the interest rate has halved , but the return from our equity still exceeds the rental for a decent house.Didn't have the courage to lock in longer. So the maths is still a no brainer, and of course, we can buy a house for at least 15% off last years price. For us the plus side is that we can consider all options, move area, upsize or downsize, very easily and not face major costs (stamp, conveyancing, etc) and of course we pay no unforseen maintenance bills. The downside is that having owned family homes for yonks you miss the home/castle thing, feeling of security and it effects some family members more than others. Would I do it again? In a moment, but I still think we will buy eventually, although I am not sure why!

Been to Plovdiv, and it is indeed a wonderful old town, bags of history, well worth a visit. As an investment? Not a chance, unless of course you speak the lingo, have mafia connections or are determined to lose money. These places are dirt cheap to visit, what exactly is the investment angle? Same goes for the rest of Bulgaria.Lovely people, but the place has a dark side. Holidays only.

Had same problem, albeit they reduced my interest rate from 5.2% to 4.1%. Systems error, of course! Closer inspection showed that they only started paying interest a week after the account had been opened, and two weeks after I had given them my cheque (at their request,"you can't open that account by transfer"). I wrote pointing out their mistakes and asked why my one-year fixed rate was only 11.5 months and at the wrong rate? After several letters they agreed to repay interest from account opening, but then failed to credit my account. After another complaint, dealt with by their "escalations unit" they credited me with a lesser figure than first agreed. Says it all really when you need an extra unit to deal with unresolved complaints, and then they get it wrong! Still they do claim to be "ethical", pity they can't claim to be competent.