Ben from Dover
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Posts posted by Ben from Dover
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Lesson here? Don't donate to charity unless you personally deliver the wealth to those who need it.
Charity starts at home anyway.
Geldof, outside of is excellent guitar skills, is a tw@t.
I've just got back from spending 6 months in Tanzania and Uganda and this is 100% correct. It was horrific to see NGO workers living in mansions, dining at 5* hotels , driving 4x4's ect while. I remember seeing one guy get out of his 4x4 merc going to a plush hotel in Arusha, on his way he had to step over a little boy who was trying to collect water out of a puddle and put it into an empty drinking bottle. On the side of this guys car it had the "save the Children" logo.
the vast majority of money given to charity is waisted on admin in the UK. The rest is spent letting a small minority live a very good standard of living in the third world. Very little actually goes where you think it will.
I'd say give your time instead and go and make a difference. Alternatively find somebody you know who you trust who is actually there. Otherwise you are basically giving your money to public sector style workers in poor countries who live like footballer.
Don't stop giving though, just be more wise...
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On the snow issue....... which I notice has become a long running debate round here........ surely it's obvious ?
The more interest there is in your house, the less likely you are to accept a low offer. Whatsmore, the more viewing the more offers you are likely to get....... and, of course, you'll usually accept the higher one. Finally, buyer moos affects offers.
Lets say you put your house on the market. Lets say it's attracting 10 viewings a week.
Lets also say that the average ratio of "viewings to offers" is 10:1.
Lets say the snow dropped viewings 50% couple of weeks.
I know these are unrealistic...... but it's only an analogy to talk about how this might work.....
So, your house over a "normal" two weeks might get 20 viewings, and two offers. You take the higher one.
Over the "snow weeks" you only get 10 viewings and a single offer....... this is 50% likely to be the high one, and 50% likely to be the low one you would have got otherwise.
Therefore (on this very simple model) and assuming you are prepared to acept an offer at either level........ the snow would have dropped prices by 1/2 of the difference between the two offers you would "normally" have expected.
Thats one mechanism.
The other is........ people guage how "realistic" their asking price is by the number of people that turn up. If you are getting tons of viewings, you are less inclined to accept a low offer. You know that at or near that asking price there is a lot of interest. If you only have 1 or two possible buyers turn up over a reasonable period, you view your asking as less realistic........ So WHEN someone MAKES a low offer, you are more likely to snap it up as "the best we seem to be able to get" than you would if you were generating a lot of footfall at the asking.
So...... again......... the fact that viewing dropped off may have inculcated a "more likely to accept a lower offer" sentiment amongst home buyers.
Finally, houses "look" worth more in nice weather. You are more likely to have a positive feeling about a house in nicer weather and vice-versa....... this may have also lowered offers a little. You may have looked at it on a sunny day and thought "thats a nice house, worth around 200k I reckon" and on a bad and dreary day, when your spirits are more depressed, and when the house "looks" less welcoming have thought "thats a nice-ish house, worth around 195k I reckon".
There is no doubt there is some aspect of ALL of these in operation........ or you wouldn't have to seasonally adjust figures.
I can well beleive that a combination of these had a real world effect on selling prices........ probably not the whole of the drop, but at least some of it.
I don't see why this is controversial.
Yours,
TGP
Don't you think people selling are bright enough to think ' we've probably not had many viewings because of the snow, lets wait until it melts and see what happens'
i can't see someone selling something it takes a lifetime to afford (several lifetimes on my wage) cheaply because they can't be bothered to wait a few days for the snow to melt and see if more people come.
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Perhaps even go to church on a Sunday. People knock them but churches are a good place on which to build a strong community.
Come on. Let us all do one thing this year (or even month) to improve our local communities. Get out there and build it.
100% agree with that. when we moved house recently we had over 25 people come and help out. All from our church. We don't even have much stuff. someone even came round to bring us dinner later in the day because they didn't think we would want to cook.
Church is an excellent place to get involved in community. It has the added benefit that most of the people there have to (at least pretend) to be nice people and care about you.
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Wow - if only they had thought of looking on facebook we wouldn't have needed all this war...
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neither Ireland or Spain can print their way out of it, these incompetent governments (thankfully) dont have control of printing presses
i hear Gordon's printing spree is working out great for the UK this week
FTSE has had a stormer, even this week.
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I just flicked through my regular Rightmove search to look for any price changes. As has been the case recently there are lots of small decreases but mostly they are so small they seem pointless.
One property had been reduced from 96,995 to 94,995.
Although its always nice to see a bit of property bee yellow on the screen, £2,000 off a £95,000 - whats the point. I can't imagine a 2% reduction is going to change anyone's mind on a property.
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But, ignore the facts, let's kick the Public Sector who generally earn below the average wage. That way we'll all benefit.
The irony in that statement...
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I am getting really p**sed off with this. Glaxo shed 1500 jobs in Harlow(not the 380 the BBC claim as that was just the scientific staff) and now this. All we need now is Pfizer to close Sandwich for the set. But noone in the government gives a s**t whereas 400 jobs go at cadburys(and i feel sorry for the workers there who will lose their jobs) and there is media and political uproar. :angry:
Pfizer already moved half of the jobs from Sandw2ich to Ireland back sometime around 07/08. They only have research and sales departments left. However it happened without many headlines nationally, locally it really gutted the jobs market though.
Oh and Smiths Medical shut down here moving all the jobs to Mexico.
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Why do we have Grammar and Secondary Modern schools? Why cant we just have schools. So much B/S in this world.
Because, as hard as labour try to convince us otherwise, people are not all equal.
Equal in worth yes, but not natural ability and we all learn at different rates. It makes sense to build that into an education system.
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Rents seem pretty high in London/SE, at least £400pcm for one room in an HMO, £500 for a studio flat, £600 for a 1 bed flat, £700 2 bed, £800 3 bed. That is not loose change for most people. If you bought something for £100k in 1996 on a 5% repayment mortgage you would now be paying less than £600pcm. £100k would have got you something pretty decent at that time, maybe a 3 bed detached in a good town. Maybe renters are on a great deal in some parts of the country or in really huge low yield houses, but cheaper rentals in London/SE don't seem like a good deal to me at all.
We've just moved into a new rented flat at £350 p/m, nice enough place, nothing flashy but near the sea side and under an hour to London by train.
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I have been living in shared rentals since I graduated 6 years ago. In that time I have spent £80 on a secondhand sofa, £5 on a lamp for my bedside table, £300 on a new laptop, and £0 on paint, carpets, new bathrooms/kitchens, white goods, gardening equipment, plasma screen TVs, iPods, beds, tables, a car (where would I park it?), blenders, juicers, microwaves, breadmakers, rice cookers, and all that other stuff. I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago, I reckon the market value of all my physical possessions must be well under £1k. I hate to sign financial agreements, have no mobile phone contract and only one direct debit coming out of my bank account (yes, I got chugged). My money goes on cooking from scratch (which I am learning from my southern European girlfriend), trips to the pub, train tickets to visit friends and relatives, paperbacks, cinema/theatre/concert tickets, and independent travelling around the UK and overseas (often camping).
The weird thing is, had HPI not trapped me in this situation for longer than I might have expected aged 18 (and will almost surely remain in past 30), I probably would be much more of a consumer. I grew up in suburban America for much of my childhood and my parents, having lived through half a century of pretty continuous economic growth in the UK and USA, are not shy of going to the shops for things when they want them. Don't get me wrong, they are lovely generous people, it's just a question of mindset. In my experience renting does mean moving every couple of years, and it's a major reason not to buy things you can probably do without. Once you've lived without these things for a while, you realise you just don't need them, and actually they can get in the way of having a peaceful and simple life.
I don't know how typical I am, I know lots of similar people but then everybody can always say that. However I'd like to venture a guess that our economic and political leaders may not realise it, but their pro-HPI anti-deflation policies are slowly creating a generation of people like this:
LIKES: saving/clearing debt ASAP, financial freedom, shopping around for everything (esp. internet), buying only what you need, making the most of life in ways that are free or don't involve much money.
DISLIKES: sticking it on the card, contracts, loyalty, impulse shopping 'because I'm worth it'.
The generation that came of age during the Great Depression was known for being frugal and careful for the rest of their lives, even during economic booms. I think there is a good chance that the new generation which is cutting its teeth on hard times of a decade of 20%+ youth unemployment, low wages and a high cost of living will be a lot more sensible than today's MEWing 40somethings, not just now, but perhaps for their entire lives.
Doesn’t it also work the opposite way. Lots of my friends fall into the trap of buying something, then disposing of it because it doesn’t fit into their new flat only to buy a similar item again 6 months later. I’m 27 and have owned 7 sofa’s during my life. If I owned a house and didn’t end up living quite a transient lifestyle I would probably have only had to buy 2.
I don’t know how many toasters, kettles, hovers ect I’ve bought over the last 7 years. Certainly more than my parents would have done by 27.
In this way renting helps the a throw-away consumerist economic model. (Not that I think it is a good thing)
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Isn't selection by academic ability ILLEGAL now?
Not down in Kent. We still have grammar schools thankfully. If you are bright, work hard and come from a supportive family you are able to get world class education without having to be rich.
Of course it means the ‘secondary modern’ school end up as terrible places. However in its own way that gives a motivation to both parents and kids to work hard and get into the Grammar
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Funny how important 'owning' a house (sorry, 'property') has become to your average Brit.
When I think of what I've done over the past 4 years (since STR-ing) it has helped me put my life into perspective enormously...
I got married, travelled the world, made some good friends, worked on some incredible projects and made (and am still making) a modest amount of money from my STR stash.
Owning a property is no longer such a priority to me - perhaps you need to re-evaluate what's really important in life..?
Agree 100%. If we had bought a house a year ago there would no be an orphanage in Uganda which we kept open where 35 kids live.
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I used to live on claridon place...many years ago...
Are you still local?
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I'm glad for you!
Also, I'm glad for me because I didn't realize that one could get reasonable houses in Dover for that amount. I will be looking for similar, I expect, when I retire (to become an artist). I will have the cash. And I like Dover. It's a nice seaside town, imo.
Good about doing voluntary work also.
PS: Just to let you guys know, I've changed my name from 'Fly by Night' to 'Giordano Bruno' in honour of the philosopher who was burned by the Inquisition in 1600.
If you do that I'd suggest somewhere a little further east along the coast than Dover. Central Dover is not quite the nice sea side town of 20 years ago. We have quite a lot of poverty and crime problems mainly due to being the main route for illegals smuggling their way in. Places around Deal are similarly priced without the crime but there are no jobs there at all (shouldn't worry a retired artist though).
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I expect the sort of home you can afford with your Pds.70,000 will improve and improve, as the market slides.
Have you thought of moving half of that outside Sterling?
If you moved into US$ at $2.00, you could have seen your Pds.70,000 rise to Pds.100,000
I liked Dollars in Q3.2009, but am looking at other currencies & Gold now as the home for most of my savings
Thanks for the tips, though I don't have 70K left now after the traveling. most of it is in non-UK based funds so I guess I have sort of hedged against £ by default. Do you think that is sensible enough or would you hold actual cash in $ ect?
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Is that you Bubb?! Realist Bear?!
Just kidding.Good to see that sensible people get rewarded. Rare thing 'till recently!
And good to see social Darwinism in action.
Good luck in your new house.
Thanks, I haven't actually bought the house, I was just using it as an example. I'm going to hold on another year I think.
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which investment funds?
I went with Ecclesiastical Amity International Fund, Ecclesiastical Amity UK Fund and Schroder Global Climat Change Fund
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I started reading HPC in 2007 and it really helped me to be able to articulate a fear that I had about the level of house prices ect (particularly who needed convincing not to buy).
Around a year ago we came into some money (about 70K) and the natural thing to do with it would have been to use it as a deposit, however because I was able to use the arguments from this site to convince the misses (and myself) not to, we put half of the money in various other investment funds instead and spent the other half taking a year out traveling and doing voluntary work. Since then our investments have made a little under 10K and the type of house we want to by has reduced almost by half.
We can now almost afford to buy a simple little house in our town such as this one:
Which has been reduced from 100K to 60K without a mortgage and on top of that have just had the most amazing year of both our lives.
So thank you HPC and to the posters on here who take the time to educate those of us who otherwise might have made some very costly wrong decisions. Particularly, Realist Bear, Dr Bubb and others who put a lot of thought into their posts.
Bob Geldof Rages At Bbc Over Claim Live Aid Millions Were Used To Buy Arms
in House prices and the economy
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Don't get me started on the fertility thing. One of the kids in our home was on of 30 from the same dad, apparently fathering so many kids is something to boast about out there, even if they are all in orphanages. There is a real culture of not taking responsibility for anything as some NGO or another will sort it out.
I love Africa, its the most beautiful fascinating place but aid is doing harm not good. We would be helping them more if we spent/invested the money building factories ect and provide employment opportunities. I've never seen so many people just hanging around in the town all day doing nothing. Well apart from a walk past my local Surestart Center