Topher Bear

Sounds about right. We be a 2+2 family, only my wife stays home. I earn just about enough for all of us, keeps us afloat, the occasional take away, and trip out, but no foreign holidays, lcd tv, i- phone, two cars aged 11 years and 7 years old. etc etc. And i'm just about considered a top rate tax payer! I always wonder how others manage the lifestyle they do. We always refuse to play the governments game, and always get clobbered for it!

It should be an ast. Not sure how that works when someone dies, but surely it should be covered by the 2 months notice, which I still feel is too little notice. You might say the guy was greedy, I would say he was trying to enjoy some of the benefits of rising house prices that most other homeowners enjoyed. Before it all went pop, financially astute if you ask me. He could have stc but then he would have had to move. The real badies in this are the company who were clearly trying to make money from rising house prices, they are a pure vi company.

Having lived in over a dozen different houses, of all ages from 1900 up(and viewed hundreds more!), I would have to say anything 90's and older is questionable. And stuff from the last 10 years on toyland estates is particularly crummy, they may be sound but certainly don't look and feel like it! The 80's stuff is mixed, not as good as older but usually way better than 90's. There is some decently built stuff around if your willing to look small development high cost. I would also point out that many extensions to older properties are pretty ropey too! You need to look out for bad electrics and useless plumbing. The last place had a waste pipe for the shower in the en-suite travel under the floor for 8 feet with no slope, in a hard water area, got bunged up nicely with the scaling! Talking of en-suites, here is another mark of a crap build: if its less than 4 beds with an en-suite, its rubbish!

Sorry to burst your bubble, but this is nothing new. Airbus always trounces boeing in order announcements at the airshows. Airbus like to hold things back to announce when everyone is watching. Boeing prefers to announce when they have something to announce. However airbus has been selling more than boeing for some years now, but the market is pretty close to 50:50. My credentials are I am an ex (less than a year ago) airbus engineer (for 5 years).

As is always the case. 'to the one who has, more will be given, and for those who don't, what little they do have will be taken away.' The more income you have the higher the lending multiplier. I've seen this myself.

Isn't the bbc moving from london to salford, which is birmingham I believe. Might explain the mini boom in the area.

Time to pull out of santander.

Oh. I really hope so. I really hope, this is the end of the euro. Then I can in around telling everyone ' I told you so'. I said from the dot it wouldn't work without political union and not enough europeans want that! Is anyone watching the relevant overnight markets? How are they reacting to tonights events?

Good luck to you! I think you have probably made the right choice, it's just so difficult to see that after all these years of waiting. I too , another old bear, am actively looking to buy. We are locked in to rental till october, but looking now with an idea of making offers after summer. Trouble is round here the market is dead. Very little on the market and almost nothing coming on. I've seen more life on mars than there is in the local housing market. Places are selling after about a 5% drop in asking price, but quite a few sstc are coming back on as sale falls through. Many vendors don't seem serious about selling either. So all in all I expect to be renting this time next year as well. Anyway, security is the main thing lacking from rental and it now sounds like you've got that, and in a house you obviously like! Sometimes you can have your cake and eat it!

Can't quite work out whats going on here. Yesterday we saw my wife's friends house back on the market. Her friends sold and completed about 2 months ago. Selling thier 2 bed place for £121k after advertising at £135k. All done and dusted. It was sold to someone who said they wanted to rent it out. It is now back on the market for £122k and 'No Offers' Why would anyone want to resell after only 2 months and only wanting enough money to cover costs? Mrs TB suggests it is money laundering. Strange!

I would bet heavily that shelter already sent a copy of this press release to bbc!

£2.50 a day? Thats less than £1000 a year. Assuming a 50 year working life, no jobless periods!, that only £50k plus compound interest, also include employer contribution and tax savings, for maybe £150k to £200k. how the ... Does she get to £750k unless she takes into account inflation. At which point its no longer the price of a cup of coffee! Given how pension funds have performed the kind of increases she is suggesting are highly ambitious.

But, council dweller, you only joined in august 07, right at the peak. To get the good stuff you needed to be around during the run up, 2004 - 2006. That was the era of real debate on here. When arguments were refined and a better undertanding of what was really going on was gained. There days its just huff and puff. As for the op prediction. He has not got the outcome for house prices right even though the low ir and qe were right. The effect has not been anywhere near as severe as if suggested. Maybe deflation is yet to come, but we seem to be a way off that yet. The blame game as it all falls apart has not really happened as they've sticky plastered the holes and all seems reasonably ship shape, until the next storm. More years go by and more of my life wasted waiting for an event that may never happen. I think that it is all going to happen so slowly that none of us really notice. only when we retire and look back will we see the real carnage. So we are now faced with the dilemna of either pissing our income up the banks wall or a landlords wall, while prices grind down ever so slowly. Either way we've been stuffed right royally.

What about if I invest the spare capital in banking shares? Do you think they'd go for that?

In my corner of sw, north wiltshire, I have been watching volumes steadily falling, which has been really worrying from a bear point of view, but in last week, that trend seems to have reversed and volumes are up slightly. Although despite lack of new places there are regular price reductions. Particularly in the new builds which seem to knock a few thousand off almost weekly! Also seen evidence of how overpriced new builds are. We viewed one (a 4 bed midterrace, with a strange car post described as a garage. It had a garage door but was open at the back into the garden. The plans had a walk there!) They wanted 215 for it. It is still for sale about 3 months on and dropped to 210. Now the house next door has come on described as "as new" (ea quotes) so is being sold by the person who bought it off developer and the asking price is 200, this one is end terrace and has a second garage door at the back. Make of that what you will.

I am sparticus!

I'm disgusted with the nationwide for this. I agree its not a fair comparison 75% vs 95% but its the principle. They were really good when I joined. I would move my banking from them now, but for two reasons can't. 1 who else could I bank with who aren't weezels. 2. If I move I will lose a long standing banking set up which helps my credit score, so I'll end up being shafted if I did move, thats never mentioned on the news items of why so few people never change bank accounts. And talkin of credit scores. That earlier article mentioning that ftb do not have a credit history, and do not know if they can keep up mortgage costs , its so crap. I've been paying rent for 14 years, never missed one, and the amount I pay isn't far off what I would have to pay now for a mortgage I could afford, and in the earlier years it was more than a mortgage on the same place. Since we have to be credit scored every time we go to a new rental isn't about time rent payment was included on a credit history properly in a positive sense!

Filton airfield to close!! Agree with whats been said about lulsgate and filton. I like lulsgate, but is a pig to get to. I never did understand why filton was not bristol airport. As a recently ex worker at airbus filton, I would say that this is going to hurt big time. Airbus have a couple flights a day to headquarters in toulouse for ordinary bods, and also a corporate jet every day from other sights in germany for big wigs as well. But the real big killer is that they have a huge fuel test facility at filton which airbus use for hot fuel testing of new aircraft. Without an airfield next door, that will be the end of that. Already lots of tech jobs have been going to other companies and abroad, particularly india. So either they are selling up because airbus have told them they won't need the airfield much longer, or airbus will pretty much pull out of filton altogether! This does make more sense of why airbus would not make any commitments as to when concorde would return to public display after its refurb maintenance. I reckon they have known about this for sometime. Filton is a sh1t hole to live in with the jobs, without its just a living hell! If I had to live there I would already have committee suicide I reckon!

Give them a break. I agree they reneged on tuition fees, which was a mistake, though might have been a concession ton far for cameron But everything else is tory government, think ourselves lucky we can get any libdem policies!

Just bumped into my mp, lib dem, who is interested in what I have to say about tenancy law. He says a colleague is looking into how its not good for us. Will tell him when we're re settled.

I might do this. I'm sure we've got a story they will love. The family kicked out thier house just as new baby born...want to buy to give family security, yada, yada. We have finance in place, just not enough for what we need, and will also fail to tell 'em we're stuck for another 6 months with new rental contract! Bring out the problems with renting! And why buy to let landlords are the scum of the earth!

Rpi + 1% that is worse than the old scheme and similar ones run by developers. What happened to basing everything on cpi?

So general elections are like horse races then. People bet on horses ( candidates) owned by rich landowners(political parties) . End result, most people get shafted, riders(mp) gets a brief moment of glory and the horse owners(parties) get the spoils! Yep, that just about sums it up! This is why democracy does not work in this country. The people who get to rule should be agreed on a principle where we get as many people as possible to be in general agreement considering all possible outcomes. And in the case of this coalition, of course the policies are compromise ones, weighted heavily in the tory favour, this best reflects the combined will of the people. Yes, AV is a shit system, which is so far from PR as to be practically despotic, but to say no WILL be seen as a vote FOR FPTP. Why do you think they chose it for a referendum? Hopefully it will get a resounding yes, then there can be no doubt that this country is crying out for voting reform. I guess this is what the tory's are frightened of. And if you find AV confusing, don't even try to understand STV !

Agreed. There is a lot of talk of sitting it out and watching from the sidelines. This simply isn't true, by renting you are in the game. For me thats about 10k a year. To be honest I think I have lost out by being am hpc er for so long. 5 years at least, thats 50k I've lost! I'm not waiting for an absolute bottom. My rule of thumb is if the falls are less than 0.5% a month, then i'm better of buying a falling asset. As at the moment i'm paying for someone elses falling asset and I get nothing at the end! I no longer really know where prices will go. I know my fundementals show a large fall is due, but with governments and banks playing the game, I now think that they can skew things in thier favour. Right now they seem to be engineering a fall without many of us seeing it. Inflation. As for the original point, I am seeing no fear here in wiltshire. Only stubboness. Almost no new places coming on and we are now on easter holls. Places are selling, not at any great pace, but its still ticking over without any further falls.

Changing bank accounts? No chance! If I change, then when I come to apply for a mortgage ( or any credit) I won't have been with my bank long enough and so my credit rating will be shot and no mortgage. They have us all by the short and curlies, unless your lucky enough to have enough dosh to buy outright. Most politicians already know who really runs the country, and aint them! Having said that we left the banks years ago and have been mutual ever since! You always know when you've hit a raw nerve with an organisation, it's when they start throwing threats around. I really hope someones got the balls to in through with this breaking up the banks, but I doubt it.