Hold Fast

pretty obvious troll......you're supposed to get wound up/jealous because "one" has saved nearly 200k in three years.

Surprising to see anything in Royal William Yard that isn't through Urban Splash (the original developer). I've had recent experience of dealing with agencies in the area. I would suggest you ask them what their fees are before committing to anything. One recently quoted me nearly 500 in fees including a £150 "lease fee" and a £60 "checking out fee". All plus VAT of course! I was half expecting them to ask me to chip in towards their Christmas party after that. [edit] Agents tend to be very creative with the photos and it may not be as large as it first looks. Picture 2 seems to be all you get for living room and picture 8 is of the inside of a wardrobe - how nice! the last one is of the building corridors not the flat itself.

Any conversation with letting agents is normally with me gritting my teeth while my girlfriend gives me her "you promised to be nice, we need somewhere to live" look. What seems to be standard around here (Plymouth) is the £75 + VAT and then various other fees depending on agency. You can then add on various other fees depending on the agency. Moving out fee seems to be a popular one. Next it will be you have to chip in for their office Christmas party. Knowing that they charge on the landlord side it has taken me a while to accept even the reference fee. I've had several conversations with letting agents trying to get them to justify what they charge. Futile I know, but I like to see them squirm. The best one I had was an agent who said the fees are justified because everyone else charges it. That's OK then!! PS I love the way everything is "plus VAT". I'm a private tenant, does it look like I'm about to give you a VAT number??

One of my recent experiences - waited outside for the agent to turn up half hour late. When he eventually turned up (his office when called claimed he was stuck in traffic) the current tenant had no idea we were coming. They had forgotten to book it, which made me wonder about the "stuck in traffic" excuse. As such the viewing (already late) was cancelled as the tenant refused access due to no appointment being made. Anyway, being wary of "admin" fees, I asked and this conversation took place on the pavement outside: me: Mate, do you charge an admin fee? Oh its 75 + VAT each for referencing. me: ok we can live with that Oh and we charge 150 + VAT for the tenancy agreement me: come off it you just photocopy the last one and change the name No, we have a solicitor draw up a new one every time! me: ok, guess we'll have to accept it Oh and 50 + VAT "admin" fee me: eh? Oh and 60 + VAT checking out fee At that point we left. So, approx £500 in fees. And there was me thinking a tenant compensated the landlord for the use of the property with RENT. I think some of the agencies are pushing their fees up to compensate for the fact that they can't just pocket the deposit (bond) as easily as they used to.

I've been following several types of sports motorbike on ebay for a while. In the last couple weeks sales have almost completely dried up. Its starting to look a lot like the house market, lots of sellers refusing to budge on price because they paid x for it so surely it must be worth very close to x?? However, I have recently seen one or two recently who sounded like forced sellers and sliced a significant amount to achieve a sale. The best bit about ebay is the "completed listings" option when searching. If you've never used it, it shows you what prices have been achieved recently on items you are searching for, colour coded green for sold and red for not. Use it for sports motorbikes at the moment and you'll see a sea of red prices - reserve not met or just no bids. .

As a saver there's nothing I'd like more than for interest rates to go up. I'm starting to wonder if we're not in Japan territory though. Assuming that the pound starts to fall, would the BOE be obligated to put rates up? Its pretty obvious their remit to control inflation has been abandoned. At what point do they have to say enough is enough, we can't protect underwater property loans any more?

chickens coming home to roost. Remember the programs about the crash in the 80s, the peter york stuff. Its like deja vu

ah I see, for those that don't alt-tab. Thanks, mystery solved.

Hi all, just curious as to what the "boss" link on the tab bar is for? Anyone know? Cheers.

No offence but you're sounding like a bit like saleman's dream.......OMG only a few left!!!!1! If you must buy now, offer what you think its worth not what they would like to get for it. If that's not enough for them walk away. There are other houses. Don't get attached to it, its just a tarted up pile of bricks. Other than that, I've got to agree with everyone else. Prices are going to fall, most people are accepting that reality now. We've just had the biggest property boom in history, don't be a sucker and panic buy just before it tips over the edge!

Personally, I think you've done the right thing in saving and waiting. Don't spoil it all for the sake of waiting a bit longer! Lower prices in future would mean lower minimum deposit allowing you to keep keep more of your deposit as a buffer against job loss etc. I'm no expert but just imagine if you handed over all of your savings and then lost your job. That's a big chunk of cash, I'd be more wary of protecting it. You might not be willing to wait any longer but it seems like you've done the bulk of the hard work.....why rush in? IMHO.

@Fishfinger mate, I didn't mean the average man in the street shouldn't have gold! Sounds like you've done very well out of it too, congrats. The reason I don't want to go into gold is I think that ship has sailed. Of course that's another discussion entirely.

Yeah maybe it is a bit too late, in an ideal world I would have done something about this long ago. But I didn't and you can't change the past so I'm hoping I can at least avoid it getting any worse. Ok, so far we've got gold and a HSBC currency account. I'm with first direct already so I'll look into that.

Hi all, I've decided that rather than risk having my savings eroded by UK inflation I'd like to do something about it. I was considering index linked NS&I bonds but ideally I'd like something that is denominated in another currency to avoid devaluation of the pound. Its not a huge amount, about 10k but its a lot of money to me and I'd like to protect it! Can anyone advise on something that could provide the average man on the street (me) a reasonable level of security, ease of access and not cost a lot in fees. I'm not interested in gold and I think the euro is a bad idea at the moment so perhaps Swiss francs, USD,, yen or even AUSD? Thanks!