definitelynotanagent

a man of many words.

Which bit did I get wrong?

This is sound advice, IMO... I've kept thinking every year since 2003ish that prices were insane, yet they've only fallen a small amount (~20%?) in 2008-2010, and after that it's been up-up-and-up. I guess the nice thing about buying, even at bubble price, is that in time general (wage) inflation will make sure the nominal price paid will be achieved again, even if you have to spend a lot of years under water.

Didn’t pan out like that in the end.. instead I’ve now got a big fat mortgage again, but hopefully paid off within approx 10 years at least the kids now get to go to the schools we wanted, which was really the main reason for moving instead of extending where we were.

Ok, update to this thread again 🙂 We finally exchanged a couple of days ago, so move preparations are underway! During the time, the buyers had YET ANOTHER buyer fall through, but in the end they found someone who eventually got all the way to exchange. Our sellers were getting antsy, so we had to pressure the rest of the chain to complete, but things still took ages and ages. Luckily everyone in the chain stuck to their agreed prices on exchange day, so we all ended up paying the "2020" prices agreed last year, and we'll make the stamp duty holiday too.

Wtf are you talking about? Round my way everything seems to get snapped up as soon as it comes on the market.

Agreed.

I am, though I gather I'm in the minority compared to the rest of the country If it was all legit, BoJo would have let us know already who it was that donated the money, and we'd have all gone "ah yeah, friendly UK billionaire so-and-so donated his weekly shopping allowance to BoJo so his friend could have a fancy drinks trolley". The fact that he hasn't said who it was makes me think that it was indeed "Russian Billionaire with links to Putin 'donates' money for drinks trolley and wallpaper, and expects favours in return, at some later date".

and/or people see the govt printing money as quickly as they can, and think that 70s style inflation will bail them out (this is the side I'm on, fwiw)

It might be insane, but for a lot of people there hasn't been a recession (not yet, at least). How many middle-class office workers have *actually* been affected by covid in a negative way in terms of work? I personally think the answer is "few". Instead they have saved money over course of the year and bit they've been working at home, and have more savings than probably ever before. Things may change in the future, but for now IMO there are lots of people out there with 30k+ more cash than they expected, and they are spending it on housing.

The tax has to be raised from somewhere, and road pricing per mile would at least mean that those who drive the most pay the most. my hobby car does a couple of hundred miles, if that, per year, yet I pay 300 in road tax for it. The other car does about 15k and the tax is about half IIRC, which feels a bit dumb.

Assuming you're serious, and it wasn't just a joke going back to work that went over my head, it could be depression. I've suffered from that for many years on and off, and it makes me completely lethargic sometimes... Good news it at at least for me the "NHS Talking therapies" helped a lot (CBT). There's also a self assessment you can take to score your depression/anxiety. Done over several weeks, it can show trends up/down and if you keep a log it will maybe show you if you score higher on the days you feel worse etc

I think you and I live in alternate realities. I get more work done from home, as do my colleagues. The first few weeks/month were difficult, but now that we're into the swing of things, we've managed to do great work from home, both on projects and the usual "keeping the lights on".

In contrast, in my area wages are up about 10% since the start of the pandemic, and recruitment agencies are calling me regularly with really quite well paid positions to fill. I think the pandemic has really caused some big rifts in the employment market. Some sectors seem to be doing extremely well, and others are faltering.

If you feel like you are struggling, the NHS mental health services (talking therapies) were really good in my experience (contrary to what you read in the news papers and hear on the radio). I must admit I thought it would be awful and just a stupid waste of time, but I was very positively surprised. Just knowing that you are doing something about stress/depression is good (I'm a sample of one, however - ymmv)