Pmax2020

Yup. Loch leven in Kinross-shire is one of the nicest places in Scotland. Schools in nearby Kinross are great and you’re only 20 mins north of Edinburgh and sort of spine of Scotlands trunk road network. But houses are generally cheap up here and that’s a rip off compared to others.

I laugh at this one every now and again. The property market is booming so why aren’t sellers asking themselves what’s went wrong with their attempted sale? Uhh… the price?!?! https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/110660231#/?channel=RES_BUY Fine it’s 5 bed, but dark, dated and located immediately on a pavement with a tiny back garden. What family would waste time and money investing in it?

With sales volumes down 55%, it stands to reason we’ve had a period where some numpties have paid a premium. That’ll mean nothing when the covid supports run out later this year.

Much of Mays sold prices have appeared on Rightmove for parts of Scotland. Where I live there are very few surprises, in fact there is literally nothing to support the 10% yoy rises being touted in the papers. Prices will fall this year, and it’ll be further than the fake rises that are being reported. When certain desirable streets start to struggle I’ll get a bit more excited. Right now, it’s those areas that still attract the nutters and odd silly price.

Fair enough but the many English fans and the mainstream media are so self absorbed that it riles neighbouring countries. I mean the BBC ran a story yesterday ‘Will the Welsh support England in the final?’. Why? Why would they? When Scotland got their draw with England the media twisted the narrative to stroke their own egos - ‘how overwhelmed with joy the Scots were to hold England to a nil nil draw’. For us it was nothing to do with the fact it was England - it simply meant our final game was meaningful. A loss meant we were mathematically eliminated. Maybe we are a little bitter up here. We do however have to effectively pay to watch our national team because the BBC and ITV only bid for England’s qualifiers. Half of ours are on Sky ffs!!!

As a Scot it’s really tiresome hearing these stories because 99.99% of us don’t care about the England team. Neither team has won anything during most of our lifetimes so there’s no reason to be jealous either. There’s no real rivalry because we seldom play one another - mainly because we rarely qualify for tournaments or progress within them. When England invariably lose a small minority of Scots may briefly cheer sarcastically for their opponents - but it’s no different to any other club or country rivalry in football or another sport. The idea that millions, or even thousands of Scots really care whether or not England win tonight is partly why we feel the English media are so arrogant.

It’s not about claiming it’s the result of brexit, but surely you can see the government and media are pushing the whole “summer of 2021” where England are taking back control of their affairs and winning the Euros fits in nicely with that imagery. They think we are too stupid to see how much of a mess we’re in.

Understandably neighbouring countries won’t be supporting England but I agree with the sentiment of the OP - the government will be desperate for the win because they’ll feel it will galvanise their insular, misguided sense of Britishness that resulted in Brexit and the economic chaos that’s ensued. It’ll also detract from their idiotic ‘rip the covid plaster off’ plans that come after 16 long, hard months where we’ve all managed to live with the virus. I support lots of English sportsman in different fields but your footballing media are just too much to stomach. Painfully arrogant, opinionated, filled with self-importance and disrespectful to every other team. You got beat by Iceland in the last Euros and the team were vilified - how dare they lose to a lesser team?! You draw with Scotland and it’s a case of ‘the players showed no appetite’. They just cannot admit when teams step up or simply play better than them which is the very essence of sport for god sake. Most Scots are braced for the England win. You’ve had a decent campaign, been one of the better teams, but you’ve needed a little luck along the way. Has there ever been more shock exits? Favourable side of the drawn too and a cheap non-penalty & own goal in the semis. Denmark were the highest ranked team they’ve played. The truth is England have had good enough teams in the past and choked time and time again. A Euros win has been overdue and looks likely tonight.

I disagree. I know a few couples that pushed the boat out this summer and spent 300-400k on a bigger houses, some of which openly admit that they’ve stretched themselves to the point of feeling concerned about their finances. One couple I know are actually converting their garage/workshop to an Airbnb because they are worried about money. You’d see a repeat of 2007/2008 - low fixed rate mortgage deals coming to an end over a 2-3 years period leaving people with a huge hike in their monthly repayment. Add to that instability in the jobs market, I mean we all know hundreds of thousands of the ‘forgotten’ furlough crew dont have a job to go back to in a couple of months.

I think we’re mid-way through a 2 year fix of 1.24% with TSB. 2 years to them always seems to be about 30 months somehow!!! I don’t care too much for finding the absolute lowest rate, I mean it barely equates to a fiver a month saving which is comes down to 0.01% here or there. Instead we’ve just been trying to overpay and we are closing in on the outstanding amount dropping below 100k. Still a lot of money but not bad considering we effectively lost money on our first house.

I’ve always tried to assess whether or not something is worth it based on the hours/days/weeks I’d have to work to pay for it. With hindsight I’ve probably been a bit tight at times but not when it comes to the kids. Indeed the only real deviation from that principle comes around Christmas time or when the mrs wants to book the family holiday. Often the memories are worth overpaying for but you can imagine me as a Scot lying on the beach, milling over the cost of my head!! I’ve been know you hide some euros in the luggage to stop the wife spending the lot!! With houses though I find it mad. Friends are signing up to £1000 - 1200 mortgages with no concern that could rise in the future. Figures that present 30-40% of their take home. Most couples we know wouldn’t survive 2 months if one of them lost their jobs, but I guess that just doesn’t concern most people. Why would it?

Or people pay over the odds because they don’t understand the value of money. I paid £80 for a Scotland football top with all the euros logos because I haven’t bought one in years and it was an impulse buy. People are buying houses impulsively and just paying ridiculous sums because there are no consequences.

My father-in-law listed his late parents house, a period property in West Lothian. The ‘home report’ valuation was 280k. First bid is 315k. Next come two bids around £340k. Sworn to secrecy, the wife has finally told me it’s sold price now that the cash is in the bank…. £382k. The buyers are coming from England and lied about being cash buyers - they needed a mortgage and stalled like mad. I said to her mum ‘well it wasn’t worth that, was it?’. She immediately says ‘Well it obviously was if it sold for that!’. I just shook my head and reminded her that a Chartered Surveyor valued it in it’s present condition as £280k, not £382k. People just can’t see what’s going on here and it’s infuriating.

There are an awful lot of pessimists on this site. Sure I read a lot of the insightful threads and agree there is much wrong with the world but life is what you make it. I live within my means. I try to get value for money when I get my wallet out. I try live a healthy life with meaningful relationships. That’s all you can do. Go our doors and soak up the summer weather. Go for a walk or cycle. Just enjoy being alive and avoid the papers for a day or two.

To me a ‘crash’ is greater than 20-25% because that represents a substantial fall. Anything less will just cancel out the last 2/3 years of rises so hardly a crash for the millions of people who will still be quids in.