davidg

It is not quite so easy as that. First of all if you say the same as everyone else then if you are wrong you can always argue that everyone else thought the same - the committee or sheep effect. No one will fire you when everyone else is just as crap. However if you look at the evidence and make a prediction based on that evidence and you get it wrong people will fire you. The other thing is so called opinion formers, and that included the media like the BBC feel they have a responsibility not to talk the market down. If the experts said "look we're all doomed" it might cause a worse stampede. That is not to excuse experts and the media, just the mainstream is never going to give you a true picture.

Exactly. A bust feeds on itself just as much as a boom. It is like cancer. Banks and buyers expect falls, banks price in falls into valuations, people have less money to offer on houses and so it goes on. That's why booms turn to bust and don't soft land.

There are lots of Poles in the French Rhone Alpes region doing jobs like plumbing and electrical installation. They don't need French, just English.

Not just the US, the govt. lost the original of my birth certificate then claimed I didn't exist :-). Apparently they shipped all the originals to India for scanning and around 10% were lost or stolen while over there. That's what they told me anyway.

Shengen just means there are no border controls, not that it was impossible to cross the border before. I cross the Swiss French border several times per day where there are still border controls and have never once shown my passport to the border guards. Apart from the UK big brother hassle things are pretty open between European countries, shengen or not. The land borders are so large that they are difficult to control.

ok ta, you should probably delete that address though before the spammers get it... although I got a bounce, you can email me at <firstname>.<lastname>@gmail.com

Yes, probably.

can you define that? Personally I shop around for something made by a manufacturer with some quality control even if it costs more. A 25 quid DVD player is no good if it breaks after a couple of months and it costs me a fiver + time to drive to the shops to get a replacement.

maybe not now but they have been selling you were lucky, when I toured by in the spring they wanted proof that I could afford one of their gaffs before they would even waste their valuable time talking to me. Personally I prefer the Point "coffin box" flats - the Barrett places will be noisy in the summer and wet in the winter. I assume the people who were signing up were flippers - quite appropriate given the proximity of the sea.

I'm one of them.

I'm not in the slightest worried but your story basically confirms my few dealings with him from a long time ago... that he is fairly straight. He must be about as old as my dad but I still wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of him.

Maybe, last spring would have been the best time, the market looks very flat at the mo. I guess it is down by the boat yard (or is it Marina?). The thing about these places is that there are only so many spots close to the sea or water so will probably hold their value better than some inner city executive appt in Liverpool. I would say that if they can afford any mortgages they are worth holding for the long term.

I haven't seen Dave for over 20 years, last time he was waving a loaded 12 bore around the place. He's done a bit of bird since. Honestly I would cross over the road if I saw him coming. Still he's basically honest, for a crook.

Lived 20 years on Penn Hill. I was amazed that the house next door had been knocked down and turned into new builds selling for incredible sums. We paid £4,800 for our house in 1968 - it still had gas lighting installed and those funny bell things to ring up for the house maids. Used to be a nice road of well to do houses many with double plots but suffered when they resurfaced the road from a huge increase in traffic.

Mann deserve to go bust.

I've been back in the UK to survey my BTL empire and I also wanted to check out how two of Bournemouth's, or should I say Boscombe's most prestige developments have come along. You may remember the 1 million quid flat.... http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...amp;hl=boscombe Well Barrett's prestige development is still being rapidly constructed down on the sea front. The pier is being refurbished and the surf reef just got the go ahead. However the sales office was dead with 50% of the properties left unsold including the 1 million quid flat. It is currently on the market at 900K and I'm told (by a local agent marketing the properties but not by Barrets themselves) they will consider offers in excess of 800K. Apparently the million quid price tag was "aspirational". The Percy Shelley Manor refurb is not nearly so happy. Since May work has stopped and I hear the developers (Charles Higgins Primary Care Ltd ???) have run out of money or don't think they will make a return in the current climate. It is a sensitve grade 2 listed building so this may be a cause of delay, facts are hard to come by on the ground. One of the south's leading estate agents has also had a rough 2007 with big losses on sales and 40% redundancies coming just after Christmas... why do they always fire people after Christmas?

Maybe a better title would be "SG provides a $4BN bailout". I know you are only taking the BBC title but it is misleading.

Malthus had it about right, he just didn't bargain on 2 centuries of fossil fuel burning. The whole human race is a bubble economy. Biologically the number of humans should be 1 - 10 million (compare us with other primates). Realitically the planet could probably support 500-1000 million people.

I wont, they grow on trees here. What we don't get are kenyan avocados in December. food in the shops here follows the seasons. It is a bit like 1970s Tescos.

Yes that's a good point, a vertical slum. I also think the maintenance charges could be too high to make it worthwhile.

Seem a bit out of place on your list. First of all they are an international brand. You may associate them with Chavs but those are fake burberry baseball caps they are wearing so it won't affect the mothership's profits. During the last recession name brands like Paul Smith and Burberry actually expanded their business. Unless you have had a recent look at the books last year they were highly profitable. Short them at your peril.

Apart from French interests in the region Chirac was against the war because he knew it would be a quagmire which would drag down France for little gain. He is also very pro Arab/Persian so would not have been keen on what he would see as invading an ancient culture. No-one gives a toss about Gulf War 2 here and there would be no support for an invasion of Iran in the country. Sarko talks a lot but does little. He is like one of those little yappy dogs, a lot of bluster and yes he can still give you the occassional nip to the ankles but his bark is infinitely worse than his bite. He is 100% guaranteed to not be in in any significant way on any future Iran war; it would be an economic disaster if Russia cut our gas supplies. Ditto for the rest of Europe.

Nah, it is not worth doing for anything more than 70K and 600pcm.

Overall that is a reasonble figure, relecting house price and other asset price growth etc over the last few years. It means that interest rates should have been around a couple of % points higher since 2002-3. Whether it is reasonble to target money supply growth, RPI or CPI is another matter as industry's needs need to be taken into account... but that should be possible through the tax system rather than interest rates.

If you are resident in the UK Nationwide will pass your details on to the IR.