waitingandsaving

I saw it too - it was in the 7ish slot, but not the 7:30 slot - they had moved on to Tescos helping out the fraudsters with their automated till systems... wouldn't want too many people to hear about the 6% IRs! Declan was also saying how a surprise rate rise was expected for today, and how we were all going to be paying a lot more for our mortgages.

Thank you Mr Shed. I think we must have been with an individual HA housing company - a website says they (the HA) have existing agreements with five Registered Social Landlords and a Health Authority. I would have said that the house we rented from them was on a par with what was available in the private market in the area (Colchester) and becoming increasingly less value for money year by year.

Our rent has just gone up by £50 - we moved in 18 months ago, and this is the first increase. I don't mind, as it's a great place, in the right location, and was the best value by far when we initially found it Even with the increase, the LL is only just breaking breaking even on his mortgage payments (by my reckoning, and that's not including taking out the agents fees - he was definitely making a loss before). In our previous house (through a housing association - tied to job) there was an obscure rent increase equation (applied annually) which was starting to seem out of hand. I can only assume that if you're in any HA housing that the equation is applied to all rents - which means presumably that council tenants (through associations) have their rents raised every year. Is this correct? If so, there are a lot of COuncil Tenants who are probably getting a raw deal in comparison to a private house rental.

Like the original poster says - who is going to afford these when everyone is out of work? It's extreme I know, and perhaps the Scampi might not be quite as cheap (or maybe they will stay the same price and the executives will have to pay themselves a bit less ) but they would be a fresher product, with less food miles. As Steve99 has experienced Australia with and without a tarriff system, I'm presuming that his opinion counts for something - which would you rather? A job so you can afford to buy stuff, or unemployed, but with a great deal on Scampi and LCD TVs? Its a simplistic view I know, and understand that there are a lot of influencing factors (there are those that would argue you can probably better afford the scampi if you're unemployed and on benefits...) But I would rather support British jobs, and British produce and have a tarriff on imports, so that it makes it more cost effective to keep the production of Scottish scampi in Scotland than have it shipped halfway round the world and back again.

See quote from article below - They are shipped in both directions - in frozen state Scotland to China, and chilled on the China to UK leg. Presumably they can't send them back frozen as that would mean after they were breaded they would have been frozen and defrosted too many times for food regulations. I don't know how long it takes to go by boat from China to UK, but chilled scampi for potentially a week (?) on a boat doesn't sound v appetising! I've always wondered about New Zealand butter and the like too - how come it's about the same price to ship butter in a freezer container ship all the way from NZ as it is to buy British butter? A tax on these imports would help a lot of producers. "Once hauled out of Scottish waters, the seafood will be frozen and shipped to China where it will be hand shelled and sent back to Scotland by sea in chilled containers. The shellfish, which is unique to Scotland, will then be breaded at the frozen food firm's £10 million factory before being supplied to supermarkets such as Marks & Spencer, Asda and Somerfield."

I confess, I sent an email to them... Sirs - These apartments seem to be overpriced (although they don't have any pictures - maybe they are covered with gold leaf...) I am sure this is must be erroneous advertising. Please could you ensure that this is rectified? Rightmove has started a "report a fault" program, and I am sure these properties come under that banner. Once again this causes me concern over your average house price statistics: Unless you know the pricing problems are there, how can they be excluded from the calculation of average prices? If you know they are there to enable them to be excluded from calculations, surely Rightmove has a responsibility to remove or rectify the erroneous pricings without we, the public, having to report them. Yours sincerely ... It is my little bit at being an annoying cow to them - it makes me feel better in a sad way. If the oh so classy penthouse isn't fixed price wise then I will send them another. I like to think it gives someone a bit of hassle to deal with (especially 1st thing on a monday morning) They have responded to me previously, thanking me for my vigilance, but since I started adding that last paragraph in, they don't write back

Lotus cars I believe they have already been reducing workers hours... Not commercial vehicles (I would like to see sandwiches delivered in one of these ) but not good jobs wise for the area either (Norwich Union cutbacks, and Jarrold printing have all announced job cuts in the last few weeks).

Wells Next The Sea OK, so it's not that compact, Bijou wouldn't describe it either, yes it has views over the creake, and the rooms aren't a bad size... but it ain't worth £750K!

It is the lack of affordable housing that is the problem - not lack of housing. Building more "affordable" houses doesn't make any difference unless they are specifically allocated to owner occupiers - not BTLers - and when they are sold they need to be sold to more OOs. I don't get the impression that there are considerably more homeless people (if there are, then it's not very well reported in the press), but considerably more people that can't buy. If all the BTLers chickened out, and decided that the long haul investment strategy wasn't for them (as a lot of those that have more recently jumped on the bandwagon must be subsidising their tenants) and all sold up, then the housing market would be flooded, prices would go down, and people could get on the ladder. Is it not a case of more houses need to be built so much as more houses need to be for sale?

"Ok, maybe getting off topic here. She might need to be creative but she could do something. There are ways of letting out trousers for the early stages of pregnancy (she will have lost a lot of that bump!). And I'd bet she has a least one blouse she could wear that would fit. She might have to wear it out (not tucked in) to hide the top of the trousers, but it could be done. I'm no fashion designer but there must be ways around this. Even if looks less than perfect it's got to beat starving yourself just after giving birth! The worst time she could possibly do it, her body needs nutrients to recover (unless she ate the placenta wink.gif)" ... Or she could pop down Primark or Asda and buy herself some stop gap clothes for the price of a couple of cans of formula!

Grrr! This dozy mare amazes me with each installment! I think Halifax Visa would be a lovely name for the child... It's not just the big things like how she should sell her BTLs, but I bet she paid top dollar for some expensive crash diet system, and I'll put some pennies on the fact she's probably buying her formula in ready mixed cartons or something - if she needs to save money then breast milk is free! Poor love, everything she does is for the baby - ignoring her creditors, going on a crash diet, etc. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5122438.stm The choice line in that article is "Sayara Beg's BBC debt diary provides a good example of an individual who has struggled with their debt and seems to be managing to bring things under control." While I wouldn't wish it on anyone, maybe she should stop trying to get sympathy out of the public and run crying to her financial advisor who presumably gave her the go ahead for all of her little projects. Or maybe she gets his advice but doesn't listen to it - much the same as her debt advisor.

I had a similar prob with the agents we are currently renting through. They were farting around wanting to do credit checks etc, and wanting to charge us for the privelege. They also wanted the 1st 6 months rent in one go, as we didn't have contracts signed for employment (we were moving some distance, and so didn't technically have a job in the area we were moving to, although we wouldn't be moving if it hadn't have been for the job...) I asked for their details so I could credit check them (if they were going to hold 6 months rent PLUS a deposit, didn't I have the right to do likewise?) Got a friend to look them up - as they were a partnership, they weren't listed as a company so I couldn't credit check them... Asked if I could have all the partners details etc, manager wasn't going for this, but after a bit of persistence, she understood where I was coming from. In the end they didn't bother taking the 6 months in one go, and didn't charge for the credit check (as she was fully aware I would have made similar charges for checking them out). We still wound up paying some fee or another for something else, and with hindsight etc, would have queried that charge too - but it was the house we wanted at a good rent, so went with it at the time - Doh! I think it pays to be persistent, and if you're in a good position, and not desperate, then you can play their game a bit. Good luck!

Real Estate - Odd Todd (IO Mortgages -Housing does not always go up) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RTqk1NbKJU I liked the Odd Todd one too! It's simply put, and gets to the point. I'm surprised (and delighted!) a little cartoon like that is a news article - I'll wait for the BBC to show it shall I.... If the USA think IO mortgages are the worst thing I'm guessing they haven't seen the group share mortgages etc, yet - maybe they won't - maybe there is more control on these things over there?

Music Man - might I ask which EA you spoke to? Did they just tell you there were 8 repos, or did he tell you which houses they were? Presumably htey would be more open to silly offers on these houses than on others? Any just outside of Thetford? ...

We've been renting for a few years now, and all contracts we've had have turned into Statutory Periodic Tenancies after the 1st 6 months (ie no new contract, it just goes onto a month by month rolling contract - we have to give them 1 month notice if we want to move out, but the LL has to give us 2 months notice if he wants shot of us) I thought this was the norm - but am getting the impression that maybe it isn't - but it saves paperwork etc every 6 - 12 months

Even if you took on a 6 month agreement, it could potentially take that long to move in to somewhere- a couple of months to settle in, work out the best areas and to find a house you like (depending on how choosy you are and what's available ) wouldn't be unreasonable, and I've seen with friends, even though everything is set for a quick exchange, these things can drag for another couple of months - taking you up to potentially 5 months in total without too much difficulty. Having not experienced the house buying process myself, I'm not speaking from personal experience, and therefore don't know if it's a "done" thing, but presumably you could spin out surveys, etc for another month wiithout too much difficulty- so 6 months tenancy agreement wouldn't be too bad?

So instead of 16 houses at 85K, there is one for 1.5M - that skews things for a start! I'd been wondering whether to pursue their statistics problems further (how do they exclude these anomolies from their figures, but don't set about excluding them from their website on a monthly basis when they do their clacs etc...), having previously read about the 3 sd. I understand the problems involved, and it would be just for the fun of them having to go through it again with someone else, but I've decided just to keep chipping away by sending e mail after e mail alerting them to their anomalies. Its what they're asking for... Someone (several pages back - I'm not going looking for it!) was saying how nothing could be done (about these pricing anomalies altering RM's published averages) as RM isn't regulated by anyone, but if it is the EAs that post the prices up on the RM site, surely they should be held to account for these mispricings? If Rightmove need help by Joe Public to report these overpricings, how can they know they are there when it comes to doing the math? I'm sure RM could very easily get rid of most of these genuine overpricings by doing a search for houses over 2.5million (they can't be that many genuine ones, surely!) and checking that they don't stick out like a sore thumb! (Although I suspect that maybe there are so many overpriced ones, its the genuine ones that look out of place ) It's just they choose not to look.

I found a house in Dereham for 125,135,000, I'd seen the "report a fault" facility on a different house, so I e mailed them to let them know... They have replied to my e mail and said they'd get the branch marketing the property to change the details straightaway. I'll be keeping track of just how quickly the change happens. They also assured me that they have a capped house price when they work out the area averages, so this house would not be included in their calculations, and hence not affect any results that they calculate. Hmmm... I also pointed out a collection of properties (16 flats, billed as a single one bed flat for a perfectly reasonable price of £1.5 million ) they assured me that these also wouldn't be included as "we would look at the average property price in that postcode, and then again remove the anomaly prices". Once again, not convinced!

Paulos - I saw that programme last night, and was a bit disturbed by a few of them the lady at the end who said "some might think I'm quirky, or obsessive".. crackpot sums her up more eloquently! I wasn't sure if it was really a programme about homes, more than "how not to decorate your house if you want to move". Its not like you could say that any of them were average houses. And the people that mentioned when they bought their house were lucky enough to buy at the bottom of the last crash. I will sit and hope we get that lucky too!! I'm fed up of the house moving programmes too - they must be running out of people that can afford to go on programmes like these. But when I watch Spendaholics (not very often), I sit there amazed that people have spent money on (relatively) worthless stuff, and let themselves get so far into debt, it must seem like there's no end to it... OzzMosiz - If you like spooks and 24, I can recommend Numb3rs - it's currently on freeview.

Hello! Thought it was about time I stopped lurking! I found HPC about a year ago - where Dr Bubb was playing a game with a BTL guy - £20K initial investment stocks & shares vs Property for a year. I love the news blog, and I've learnt a lot over the last few months - thanks to everyone! I now look forward to adding my opinions in to the mix - they are free, and worth every penny!