hotblack42

Always a conundrum. My advice would be buy 80% of what you could afford for a tidy place that needs updating (at a pace to suit you) but no serious issues, in a cooling or doldrums market. Then move only when you actually need to & dismiss any desires for prestige etc. Your late middle aged self with no mortgage, a solid pension & a year’s salary in savings & investments will thank you every single day.

Yes. Actually inflation over the last 3 months is probably quite near the 2% target. It was very high late 23 / early 22. Maths innit? A lot providers will have raised their prices despite not being under the same pressure as competitors. Naughty providers. Quiet about these windfall profits, weren’t they? They now have headroom & some will cut prices to maintain volumes. However, inflation is a sod to get right down & will likely fluctuate on the way. I’m pleased so far to see the BOE keeping rates above inflation & hope they will be remain very cautious throughout 2024, ideally for ever.

The Tesla fanboy bilge on this thread is pathetic. It’s just another manufacturer . Tesla will either become a global competitor to the stablished cohort or fall by the wayside. I don’t care which & neither should anyone else unless a dealer, employee or shareholder. C onna B. Find something worthwhile to debate.

QE possible, but only in response to another bout of serious financial instability. Most with the resources & insight to ride ZIRP & HPI have diversified. There’s no appetite to spin it up again, too soon. It’s popular on HPC to imagine that most wealthy investors are leveraged speculators with low net worth. It’s just not true, most of them have invested steadily over the long term, buying at various prices, not trying to time the market. They generally look for income & usually don’t need to sell, so won’t get ‘burned’ when stocks correct. On the contrary, they’ll typically increase holdings (or rather their Investment manager will for them). Too many on here see things as they want them to be, not as they are.

Yes there are good sales staff. But the way they are always on the alert for prospects is incredibly tiresome. I’ve seen them fishing at conferences, training courses, chat on webinars - basically anywhere a potential client may have the misfortune to be on hand and temporarily unable to part company. It’s not nice to have someone pretend to be interested in you, or appear to be sharing your pain, when they are in fact trying to establish a new line of revenue.

We’re not honest with ourselves about buy to let on here, constantly making out it’s stupid either immediately or at some future point. If you have 7 figs to invest & time to research, or residential is oversold as in much of 90s, then 1 or 2 properties makes sense in a diversified portfolio. It’s not ethical though & legislation should give sole home owners an advantage over landlords, not the opposite. Borrow to let however, is not priced properly by lenders and often engaged in by individuals in no way suited to running a small business.

You’re thinking typical 59 yo, presumably they met an outlier. A few lucky women are more attractive at 59 than most are at any age. Genes. Symmetry. Exercise. Diet. In that order.

No. Obviously. UK wide: Been a bit crap for many & awful for a sizeable minority. Weather was pants. Looking forward to better weather in 2024. Parochially, all immediate family in OK to very good health for age & have enough or more than enough to pay the bills. That’ll do.

I favour mundane. Most people experience banality for most of their life. Despite the mathematical certainty of this, almost everyone hopes that they will be in the tiny minority with interesting lives. It’s one of the tragedies of humanity. Mundanity is highly underrated. No stress 😎

Good luck with that. Yup. His wife grew up in Silicon Valley, they have family in Oakland and Northern California. No intention of living or even socialising in the Inner San Francisco / Bay area. They're planning to live 50-100 miles NE, well away from the nonsense the idiotic liberal ideology has caused, but close enough to siphon some $$$ from the valley, dropping by the office a few days a month. He's smart enough to carve out a role doing (genuinely) essential & challenging work that the management don't fully understand and are scared of what might happen if he ever stops. Chip off the old block 😉

Yes. That price was only in their minds, never real.

Up to a point. Older son in Stockholm with Swedish partner. we see him quite often & the culture & humour is similar. Younger son heading to California. This is absolutely a huge change, although it’s not as introspective as the mid West. First to admit East Coast would be better from our POV. Also lots of Brits in NY State & old families with UK roots. Oh well..

Voted -10%, but it might be only -5% UK wide with London down 10%, SE, Edinburgh, Cotswolds, Spa towns down 5%, remainder stagnant. Young adults with above average salaries & gifted deposits may see an entry point in 2024. Probably better to wait until 2025 if possible, or emigrate. Its not necessary to catch the bottom of the market, near long term mean will do. A year older is a consideration for those who want kids.

Visited the Lookout, 8, Bishopsgate this week. Could only see a handful of the people sitting at window desks in Tower42. In the smaller office to the right - 1 person was visible. It is surely doubtful that staff sit on desks away from windows. 2.22pm Monday. Yes that’s the quiet day, but still it was sobering to see the stark reality. The lookout is worth booking if you are in town anyway. Somewhat higher than the Skygarden, no queue & much less crowded.

“Ward off the lions charging us with that flaming torch?” ”Without extensive peer reviewed clinical trials? Are you insane?! Who knows what the potential long term health implications of flaming torch use are!”

We’ve seen roughly a quadrupling of London, tripling in SE & doubling elsewhere. Obviously it’s more complex, but let’s be reductionist for a moment & visualise stagnation in most of the UK, 33% off in the SE & halving in Greater London. By the end of 2025. What would that actually mean? Would it harm the fundamental economy at all? Consumption of ‘nice to have’ goods & services would collapse for a few years I guess. That would be good for the environment. No real idea though, 88-92 boom/bust was more geographically consistent, this London weighting of increase as well as price is new AFAIK. If your livelihood depends entirely on people buying things they don’t need, maybe it’s time to move on, move out or retire..?🤔

When we are looking for a car it is so deeply frustrating to see what we want all around us on the roads, but never on forecourts, other than hideously overpriced ones. I have long suspected that the cream of the used market goes to dealers, their friends & relatives & other dealers as mutual back scratching. The last people they want to sell to are value seekers looking for sweet, reliable cars at a price leaving them with about £500 profit net of operating costs.

At 20 oh yes please! At 40 nah, jailbait or entrapment At 60 - why hasn’t she had her roots done yet?🤔 Sorry, did you say something? Just trying to get some entertainment from these POINTLESS POP UPS!

That latest cut is dramatic & opens up this house to a hugely increased market. That said, even part time commute to London is not feasible at all. Lovely place, but anyone who has paid iro £1M to move to Port Issac has completely lost it & f***ed up any inheritance.

Whatever, as a commuter into London 6x a month this is welcome news

This is more about naive gullibility than the cost of housing.

LOL. “Took hold of Sweden”. I guess there are a few ghettos with this problem. Dunno, why would we ever go to these areas? My son has settled over there & only mixes with educated middle class / professional folk in relatively wealthy neighbourhoods, or the central islands for culture & meals out. No reports of trouble from him, or his partner’s family over 7 years. Not the merest hint of trouble when we visit, twice a year. Hopefully these scrotes will continue to sh1t solely on their own doorstep.

“Why did you pay for bee dee fifty five plate” ”Boss innit?” ”err, no.. well perhaps, to people like you, if they squint, from 100m away” Can’t stand insecure wannabees. if you want a interesting plate, get yer wallet out & pay proper cash. Personal plates that only work from a distance or by using black screw covers or weird spacing are so lame. Do, or not do.

I don’t pretend to understand the banking system as a whole - this thread has attracted the oft repeated vitriol about QE & bankers. What I do know is that dumping unprofitable clients, checking first for any unintended consequences, & redeployment and/or redundancy is something all established businesses should do regularly, or at least verify that they do not need to. Good for the bank, their shareholders & the economy in the long term.

No one will miss the Range Rover. Tis a silly car. Will be a vague memory like the Montego in c. 15 years.