levoleurdefruits

Danlee74 while you may think "this country is f^&ked", I think this is just boxing clever to sell a nice seaside flat. Lots of reasons why the sellers might do this. Changes in the rules to pension fund access, etc.

"they"?

I started following HPC in 2005 and desipte this bought a house in 2007. So many different arguments ran through my head at the time. Plan A went something like this: Over-leverage, buy the biggest house possible, wait for inflation to kick off, own a large house with an increasingly affordable mortgage. That is in fact exactly what I did. Didn't come off yet. Inflation has been much less than I anticipated. But I declared my hand and took a punt. Anyway, Plan B was always to earn a lot of money to pay off the large mortgage, that plan kicked into action in 2008 when identical houses to mine were selling for 25% less than I paid. C' est la vie. So I have worked hard and earned a few grey hairs, as a poster above observed. At the end of the day, we all have to make a choice. Do I regret my choice? Yes, a bit. If I had waited 1 or 2 years I could be in the same house but significanty less indebted. But in other ways, no. I have loved living here for the last 6 years. In the final analysis, we are born with nothing and die with nothing. Money is just an illusion to occupy the middle years. And" as the butthole surfers said: it's better to regret something you did than something you didn't do". I think that was the red hot chilli peppers. Regards to all

That is some crazy little empire you are building there VMR

We are well below the red line now. Whets my appetite a little

Not discriminatory though. Anyone could learn Polish and hoover up that £7 per hour. Dziękuje bardzo.

Can you expand on this? I would like NIL for 1, LOW for 2, AVERAGE for 3, I don't really care about 4, and LOW for 5. If such a place exists, please tell me and I will move there immediately. It also must be at least 15 minutes away from the nearest M&S

I **LOVE** the no 2 top rated comment "You can buy a house from the council, but you can't buy the council from a house"

Nationwide House price index is seasonally adjusted http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/questions/method_qs.htm We seasonally adjust our prices because the time of year has some influence. Winter months tend to see weaker price rises and spring/summer see higher increases all other things being equal.

Good point- in gold terms my mortgage is 4 times smaller than it was in 2007, which would ease the pain considerably if I had a pot of gold with which to repay the mortgage...

The real prices are adjusted by the Office for National Statistics RPI figures: 4% 2007, 0.9% 2008, 2.4% 2009, 4.8% 010, 4.8% 2011. 3.1% 2012. Would you use different inflation data? What amuses me is that if I had bought a pile of gold in 2007 instead of a house, I could now buy my house, the house across the road, and the houses on either side! Just like some HPCers were saying back in 2007 when I first joined the site. It's easy to be wise after the event... unfortunately I didn't listen at the time.

Anecdote: I bought a house at the end of 2007 This is how my house's value has changed (www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/calculator/calculator.htm) in both nominal and real terms (www.ons.gov.uk), and against the FTSE (finance.yahoo.co.uk) and gold (goldpricenetwork.com) some you win, some you lose...

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-2191621/Are-brave-The-25-year-fixed-mortgage-returns.html edit: in fact 5.29% repayment residential / 5.99%, IO BTL

Cost you good money in Soho, that would

Why wouldn't a homebuyer choose a fixed rate IO mortgage when interest rates are at a historic low? Instead of making repayments, money can be invested at a variable rate, which will only rise.