Frank Hovis

Can't see it being allowed before the next election. I called the top with that thread about the £950k chalet in north London, anybody buying that will be pretty sick if they're left holding it when the music stops, there is absolutely nowhere for that to go except down. However whilst our interest rates will be dragged up in the wake of US rates, so collapsing UK house prices, rate rises will be zero / minimal this side of the election for political reasons so it has a temporary reprieve. IMO.

Wilkinsons is the absolute best store, they have everything ridiculously cheap. Poundland is good for specifics: got this year's diary there (vs >£5 in WHSmiths), and they have one-offs that are great value (soem sunglasses - £40 online when I checked) which make it worth popping in on the offchance.

Here to help

We follow the US. They seem hell bent on continuing tapering so that will end this year and then, because their economy's in reasonable shape and they've had their HPC their rates will start rising. As ever we have no choice but to follow (with a discreet lag to pretend we have something approaching control) and that will be that for house prices. There will be concerted efforts by the government to stop the inevitable so that they can demonstrate that it's not "their fault", help to buy 3, 4, 5 etc., mortgage relief put in place to stop a tsunami of repossessions but that will all be pure ****-covering; the only way is down. It will get continually talked up by the VIs but as nobody will be able to afford to combine current asking prices with higher mortgage rates it will go down big time, starting when the US does its first rate rise. Bye bye.

That's a shame Harry I successfully talked my parents out of buying a holiday home a few years back, mainly my mum after watching too many Place in the Sun type progs, and now they've seen those crash and see how right I was and how much money I saved them they trust my judgement these days.

It doesn't read like he had suicidal tendencies, rather that it was the effect the crippling debt his wife and her parents were dumping on him and he didn't want to accept it. In theory you can just walk away but that's very hard when the other person doesn't want you to and so you end up feeling cornered in a situation you don't want to be in with no obvious way our of it.

Wet friends!

There have been a few on here who have said about having to resist pressure from their OH / family to buy a house at current prices. Keep resisting. This guy sounded like he was a great bloke. http://www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/Bike-club-founder-Mark-Churchill-dead-new-house/story-20631462-detail/story.html That old "pay any price because mortgage rates are low" attitude being used to push people into huge debt, and a guy who saw how he was jeopardising his future with such a massive debt but was under too much pressure to be able to say no. Great shame and I genuinely think had he found this forum he would have had the support to just say "no".

Oh indeed, it was actually last Tuesday IIRC that seemed like the end of days, the local radio as I was driving home was pretty much given over to the travel bulletin: tree down at, electric lines across the road at. I was driving back thinking they hadn't affected me yet when they started reading out ones that did It looks like West Wales has had the worst of it over the last week.

That is a stunning statistic. So essentially the traditional university entrant (who is academic and goes on to get a well paying job) is being hammered financially for no good reason as the system is actually costing more. In former jobs I've done the payroll checks, I was surprised by how much people were losing in student debt deductions each month, and this was before £9k tuition fees.

When was the last big council estate built? All the big ones I know are decades old and were built on land that it was sensible to build on. It's only the redbrick "executive" four beds with double garges and tiny gardens that go into floodplains.

If only LibLabCon would see it like that, they just think the tax revenue arrives by magic and it's their special pocket money to dole out.

As Freetrader's thread superbly points out people are asking £500k plus for houses that might not be there in ten years. Not that anybody's necessarily paying it of course. http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=194543&st=0

Quick bump for Freetrader's thread, extremely relevant with all the flooding.

Glad you're happy about an indeopendent Scotland not having the pound.

I would have thought it'll have a major effect. I've barely gone out since Christmas and haven't considered any weekend breaks away. IMO despite Cameron's "Open for Business" mantra I would have thought that anybody who has booked a holiday in the West Country or Wales for the coming half term week is certifiably insane.

I listened to the Archers for about ten years, always the Omnibus and any I could catch during the week. In that time they pretty much covered all the storylines you could have in that setting so I stopped listening to it, haven't heard it for years.

It's Hong Kong, too many people on a scrap of land.

It was a bit more measured when it was pointed out that people whose earnings are dependent upon the weather so haven't been able to work (fishermen, window cleaners, builders) would be given time to pay their tax bills. Appropriate response IMO, you don't make somebody go bust but equally you don't start throwing huge bundles of cash at them.

People need to think about these things way in advance. My parents don't want their assets to go the state (given what it does with its money) so are partly enjoying themselves by spending them and partly giving them to their children as a steady annual IHT free gift. All of this since their 50s when they did the sums. Ok boomers, HPI and great final salary pensions but combined with an appreciation of how lucky they were with it, lack of avariciousness, and desire for it to benefit their children and not the taxman or go in care home fees. Absolutely spot on IMO.

It's the last bastion of rampant protectionism IMO. Just imagine what our car industry would be like today if it had received the money continuously pumped into British farms.

Those barrister figures are a bit misleading as they're shown after tax. I guess that means about £40k and £50k gross. Not bad but you tend to think of barristers as doing very well.

I would entirely scrap farm subsidies / Common Agricultural Policy. If I was a plumber and couldn't make it pay I would have to do something else, if you're a farmer and can't make it pay - have a big cheque.

Absolutely. Doing something like bringing in the cost of the bank bail-outs every time prevents grown up debate about the benefit the system. I am glad that IDS has had the courage to start to reform it and I agree with the thrust of what he is trying to do. It has however been handled badly with bedroom tax not thought through and problems with actually paying benefits on time meaning constant queues at foodbanks. He needs to sort out these two before moving onto anything else. Although paying HB / LHA to tenants rather than direct to landlords is stupid IMO, unless getting people made homeless because of rent arrears is part of some grand plan.

We're not talking about Cherie Blair style troughers. These are small local firms where the partners will make a reasoanble living but no more than that, one I dealt with ?last year/ year before was clearly up against it by the state of its offices. Legal aid provided a good chunk of their income and as the rules on that have been tightened they have struggled further. We see the headline cases of people like Asil Nadir or that Jordanian islamist getting vast amounts of legal aid and want it reformed so that they don't get it. The reform may do this but also hits the little people - small local law firms and their clients. Like doctors, not all lawyers are greedy troughers. There are some good ones out there.