Mancghirl

Yes, that's another good point. I remember a couple of years back the local Polis nicking large numbers of young ladies for 'trading' out of rented residential premises (three of them were in the next street to where I then lived). Ah, Leith.... The 2 bed 2 bath 'luxury apartment' seems to attract all the wrong types of people.....

[quote name='Lagansider' date='14 August 2010 - 09:15 PM' timestamp='1281816937' post='2671001' Also, do a quick search to try and ascertain if any are advertised as 'short-term' or 'corporate' lets - which can from my own experience, be a nightmare for an owner occupier to have as a neighbour.. This means your neighbour changes on a regular basis, not helping block stability, and far from being 'corporate', the lets can be groups who are over to party for a couple of nights, even midweek, with little regard to neighbours at 4am... If you do a search on Gumtree etc as well as the property sites you can usually find them.. This is great advice. As hotels are less and less keen to take stag/hen nights. hard up BTLers have been renting them out as party flats. Believe me, you don't want to be living next to one.

We don't KNOW he's a guy Can we not tar all women with the same brush, please? Some of us have a modicum of sense.......

Portugal cheap, good to see*. Vastly underrated country, good wine and decent food. Never understood why people would be willing handover £££ to stroppy Greeks, when they could be in Portugal. *Disclaimer: Prob not for the Portuguese.

There you go

HA! i think not, the Peugeot was just a stroke of luck after some idiot hit my lovely Fiesta (bought by my Dad, £1300, previously driven on the school run by a neighbour) and wrote it off. Was stranded, so bought a 205 out of the local paper for £450 - drove it home and around for a couple of months, sold it for £800. This was about 5 or 6 years ago. Bought my Panda straight from the Fiat dealer at end of 2007, traded it to the local Peugeot/Kia joint dealership, after the Fiat dealer pissed me off with a low ball offer for the Panda against a Fiat 500. Also went to the Citroen dealer as was thinking about a C1, but he inflated the on the road price and did the whole 'patronise female customer' schtick, so I walked along the road to the Peugeot dealer, who seemed honest/helpful and willing to deal in cash. My Dad just drummed a whole heap of sense into me about never parting with a penny more than I had to. He was a generous man to his family and friends. But he was as tight as two coats of paint when it came to material goods. He grew up in extreme poverty in Glasgow and didn't give a monkey's about keeping up with the Joneses. Paid cash for everything, never had a credit card in his life.The only debt he had was a mortgage in the early 70s, which he paid off within 15 years. I thank him for that, as he provided some of the best financial lessons possible. Edit: Pilchard, I have other vices, so a Fiat Panda it is! Drive 100 miles a day to get to work, so its frugal car or reductions in eating out/fine wines/technology purchases/savings.

Thanks guys. The power of having cash and not needing finance was drummed into me by my dear late Dad. He NEVER bought a damn thing on finance and was the king of sucking his teeth on car lots and saying 'Well, I've got the cash, son, if ye want to deal the day, like.....' Also, small cars rule. I do a lot of miles, so MPG is king for me. I also sold an 80,000 mile Peugeot 205 for more than I paid for it. Depreciation minimal, despite me hammering the highways and by-ways. Fun to drive, too. Edit: Just checked the dealer's website and he has reduced me old Panda to £4k.

I agree - just posted an anecdotal on another thread about changing my car recently and the dealer was saying most of his trade was people buying Kias for the 7 years warranty or <1200cc cars. He had a lot of traded in flash tat (lots of Minis) he couldn't shift. Trading down in property is not so quick and easy to transact, though. My folks did it, when they had paid off the house they had brought us up in and my Dad was getting too old for tending large gardens. However, this was a few years ago when the market was fluid. It certainly isn't round my Mum's way these days. The new builds at the rear of her garden (garage too small for a car) are virtually all up for sale and nothing shifting.

Yowser I'm unlikely to ever need to know about the world of Beemer depreciation. Bought my last car brand new for cash - £5500 (Fiat Panda 1.2) and traded it this year after 45,000 hard miles. Got £3k for it and the dealer is attempting to resell for £4,500 (which I wouldn't give him as it has a slightly dodgy paint job and typical Fiat electrics).

I agree wholeheartedly. However, accordingly, flats in decent bits of Edinburgh cost as much as some houses in large swathes of England. There are still crappy new build 'luxury' estates with 'service charges' here as well. Though why you would bother when the existing housing stock is solidly built is beyond me. The lure of the en-suite bathroom appears to outweigh having internal walls made out of cardboard.

I'm not a huge reader of her stuff, but there is a highly amusing and long running thread on Digital Spy, devoted to despising her outpourings, which I dip into from time to time and read the related article. The pieces she has written about waking up to financial reality and running out of places to borrow money from ring very true. She seems to epitomise the fur coat and no knickers types that are everywhere at the moment. I suspect many others have lived the debt=wealth lifestyle. Doesn't matter what you have in the bank, what car is on the drive? Even if its leased. Even if you've 'bought' on an IO mortgage without a repayment vehicle. How does it LOOK to others? I live in a fairly affluent part of town and was surprised to witness my neighbours' car being repossessed recently. Was walking towards my own car, with keys in hand - must have done a double-take as the man with the truck said 'This isn't yours, is it, hen?'. When I reassured him that it was not, he said 'Aye, yours is paid for, eh?'. Which it is.

I had a car when I was on £650 a month. Course petrol was only about 85p a litre.

You've clearly never read any of her 'journalism'. She is the most profligate half-wit possible. There is not an overpriced pot of moisturiser or designer frock she hasn't bought. She wrote an article about trying to live on £65 a week and in it was a meeting with a 'dear friend' who ordered champagne and then fecked off, leaving her with the bill. If she's been picking up the tab for all that for 15 or 20 years, she will have MEWed all the way.

Small anecdotal: Just traded in my 57 plate fiat (55mpg) for a smaller peugeot (70+mpg). Was prepared to buy new, but bought an ex-demo. However, 2nd hand models appeared to be like gold dust via dealers. Noticed he had tons of flashmobiles on the lot (esp Minis). When I enquired as to why (Mini dealership located within 500 yards), he said that they were trade-ins and he 'couldn't shift them'. Said a lot of his current trade was people buying Kia models (due to 7 year warranty) and people trading in for diesels or cars under 1200cc.

That's funny, I revisited the idea of purchasing a houseboat in the depths of depression about HPI a few weeks ago and noticed that it too appeared to be experiencing much lower asking prices than I remembered from a couple of years back. Lots of 'reduced price' /must go to cash buyer stuff too. Anyways, I've just found a 2 bed flat in a reasonable part of Edinburgh, not ex-council (not living room/kitchen either) for around £100k, so I reckon its ON! Sitting back, opening a decent bottle of red and some crisps to watch it unfold.

Damn straight. I'm aiming for a 2 or 3 bed big Victorian flat in a decent area. I've skipped the FTB type place and unlikely I'll ever want anything bigger (unless I unexpectedly have more than 1 or 2 kids). No aspiration to have some massive house - its not the same in Edinburgh anyway, many people live in flats much bigger than houses. Being mortgage free will be the biggest freedom. Already paying big into my pension, so once the saving to buy is done I can start building substantial savings for the long term.

Northern Quarter? You mean Oldham St? I used to live in the 'get your car broken into ever Saturday night quarter' i.e. Hulme or 'New Hulme' as its no doubt called. Manchester is very much 'fur coat and nae knickers' these days. Like all the folk at my mum's work busy remortgaging and buying new cars - they'll be getting made redundant with 12 months, due to an already announced takeover. Common sense has left the building.

Good for you. With a decent drop round my way (30%), I should be in a position to buy what I want in about 18 months. For cash. Entirely done by saving from my salary, knocking the foreign hols and expensive clothing purchases on the head. Still have what I consider to be a great standard of living, nice car (paid for in cash), eat out regularly and socialise. Thanks to the wise advice of many on this site.

'Located in New East Manchester....' as opposed to the old one, which was full of poor people.

Good luck. Its tough out there but some people do sell - my mate sold his place to a cash buyer within a week. Other friends are now getting no viewers after months on the market, nice area, lovely flat. However, 5 up for sale on the same street and a neighbour has just dropped his asking price by 10k, so its just a race to the bottom now. I wish you well.

Been out, so am just catching up now. Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit drinking Champagne........

Spooooooooky

MacWhirter has been a lone voice of sanity in the Scottish media for years, on a number of subjects. Trouble is, he's so often drowned out by the VI nonsense dressed up as journalism that streams from the offices of The Hoots-man.

Well, I try! Happy hunting, if you need any further advice on areas, just let me know.

Depends on the location, I'd say £650 to £1000+. About £1000 or more would get you a house in a decent residential area slightly out of the centre of town. e.g. 4 bed house - Newhaven/Trinity I'd avoid Marchmont as its student-ville and rents are subsequent crazy. Possibly also Newington. They are both nice areas but the turnover of rental flats is high and you run the risk of living next door to 4 or 5 20 years olds who want to play music all night. Looking on Gumtree.com for Edinburgh and Citylets.co.uk will give you an idea of prices. Decent areas are New Town (v pricey), Stockbridge, Comely Bank, Morningside, Bruntsfield, Trinity, Inverleith. There are plenty more. Depends how near the centre of town you want to be.