Bobajobbob

No mortgage No Debt

Is there an encrypted torrent network these days? The article above suggests that the swedes have migrated to one but I am not aware of it though it has been a while since my napster days.

Just a quick update for those that might be interested. We moved down here a month and half ago into a rental property bang in the centre of town not far from the cricket ground. The rent is astronomical but more through luck than judgement the house itself is great and the location very good. 5 minutes to town and 5 minutes or so to the station. The conundrum now is whether to carry on renting at significant cost hoping for a drop in prices (or rise in interest rates) or bite the bullet and buy dropping our monthly outgoings but taking a market to market risk on the value of the house. It really is the perfect storm for someone in our position. Rent for the size of house we need is significantly higher than our previous housing cost when we owned almost outright. Rates are so low that our significant savings barely offset a fraction of the rent however if we rush to buy now, assuming that we find something that we like which we can't because there is nothing on the market and what is is vastly overpriced, we take a big risk on a rapid depreciation of that asset over the next couple of years. It may seem an anathema to some on these boards but the best solution for us really is to buy, if we can find something. Yes market to market we may lose on the value of the asset but given that any mortgage we take out will be relatively small it really doesn't matter. The only thing that could alter the balance would be a rapid increase in rates to the point where interest on investments offsets or tops rental costs. This would be the best case scenario as we could then continue to rent without the weight of immediate monthly costs in an environment when pressure would be greatly increased on house prices. I can't see this happening at the moment but post election we may see rates begin to creep up. I am pleasantly surprised with Sevenoaks itself. Yes the town is not exactly cosmopolitan and the average age is significantly higher than I am used to however it is hugely less stressful and more easy place to live than London. There is little to no real traffic and any time of day, no plane noise, little to no chav/gang scum, countryside really is special nearby. I miss the proximity of London friends/pubs/restaurants and the ability to go home first and then go out but it is not a huge effort to go out straight from work and then get a late train home. Otherwise I miss my old local Thai restaurant and the fact that I could jump on my motorbike and pop anywhere in a very short time with the best shops in the country easily accessible but again it is hardly a huge inconvenience to jump on the train for 30 minutes to do the same. All in all a good move and I am very much looking forward to summer and the opportunities this will bring.

Did I hear right over the jeers and jibes that the removal of the lowest band goes live today but the additional 1% on 1 million pound houses doesn't come in until Apr 2011? Cheap electioneering at its most unsophisticated. Labour are just building traps for the Tories if they win. It is frankly shocking that just because your house has appreciated in value in this bubble economy and you would like to move that you have to pay £50k+ to the government just for the privilege. Just because your house is "worth" that much and accordingly the house you would like to move to is also "worth" that much doesn't mean you have that kind of money to throw away. A year or two's wages on top of fees and moving costs just to move house? Daylight f*cking robbery. The only consolation is that it may bring down prices but I won't hold my breath.

My wife is a lawyer and had to deal with someone who worked in the Wild Bean Cafe in a Petrol station and was off with stress. OMG I can't take any more croissants! There was another chap who I had slightly more sympathy for worked in an industrial textile mill and apparently had a chronic phobia of fabrication machines and looms and was thus off with stress. It apparently never occurred to him that given this phobia perhaps a career in the mechanised manufacture of fabric was not for him. He strung along a tribunal and his employer quite literally for years. Totally hatstand.

You got a good deal on the cheese. I picked up some standard cheddar the other day and it was nearly 4 quid.

In my opinion Cameron just destroyed Brown and Darling and looked, possibly for the first time, like he wants to win the election. At one point Brown looked like he had sh@t himself. He was confident and on target and actually showed the right amount of disdain for the ladies and gentlemen in front of him. About time he stopped being so soft and fluffy and actually exposed Labour for the abject failure they are.

In my early 30s I traded up from a 2 bed flat to a 4 bed victorian terrace. Cost £499k. Had a mortgage of about half that amount. Over the past 7 years paid off the majority of the mortgage and then sold. Am currently renting and looking for big family house. Rent is extremely expensive and decent family house is hard to find. Am struggling between buying for cash or taking out another mortgage for a bigger place. Problem currently is not the finance but lack of houses to choose from.

In my experience agents are more likely to try and get the seller to reduce the price to the first offer that comes in than the other way round.

This is completely true with one factor that you do not mention that is just beginning to make an impact. Stamp duty. At 5% over £500k this is beginning to make people think, or at least it is making me thing. When it starts costing £50-£100k just on stamp duty to move then it makes you think twice regardless of the "value" of the house you are buying. Just because I am buying a house for £1.5 million doesn't mean my mortgage is close to that or my income can support an additional £50k on the mortgage. With prices rising rapidly it could be absorbed but right now this is the factor that tipped me into rental.

Just for info for me today having just sold my house and moved into rental it is costing me about 6 or 7 times as much to rent as it did with the mortgage on my previous home. Don't assume that everyone needs 100% mortgages. Most don't. This is one of the reasons why there is so little on the market today. Ok so I have a lump sum of cash now but it yields next to nothing so offsets sod all of the rent. The assumption that rent is cheaper than buying only works at the very bottom of the chain, purely on a monthly cost basis anyway.

I just completed on my London house sale. Sold for circa 5% under asking. Took about 3 weeks to find the buyer. Had plenty of interest and probably could have held out for a higher price but why look a gift horse in the mouth? I'm happy to rent this year for as long as there is a possibility of higher rates. I'm a lot more worried about actually having enough to choose from than I am of runaway prices.

I'll add my perspective to this, as fingers, crossed I will exchange on the sale of my place this week. My place sold in about month after we dropped the price by 4% from the original asking. It is a good house and we priced it quite fairly to start with. Certainly it would have sold for more a couple of years ago but it was not a difficult transaction and we received offers from 3 of the 7 or so viewers. Our reasons for selling are that we are moving area and the lack of choice in the new area means that we are going to be renting for a year or so as we get to know the town and exactly where we want to live. Having said that there is nothing on the market there so we could not have bought even if we wanted to. Those few houses that are on the market are in my opinion overpriced. I'm happy with the timing of the sale and happy to be renting next year as in my view prices should head lower next year and rates up. Having said that it is an enormous headache dealing with the surplus cash at this time. In the perfect world the money would be invested and gaining interest to offset the rent however no matter where you look even with a chunk of change interest is hard to come by without risk. Put it in the bank and you have to split it umpteen times to avoid the bank going under and there simply aren't enough banks around to do it and most pay negligible rates. Give it to the government who pay even less but do I trust them? No. Short gilts yield nothing. I'm not going to bet my house on gold. Stocks are too risky and due a correction. It is a huge PITA and I can see why prefer not to rent at the moment. Having said that with a bit of luck the market will turn down next year and rates will head up so that the gap between income/rent and eventual house purchase price will work in my favour but it isn't something that I feel very comfortable with.

I can read a map but I choose to use a sat nav most of the time because it is a hell of a lot easier when you are driving unless of course the wife is in the car and then I definitely use the sat nav. The most important functionality for me is the speed camera warnings rather than the actual route planning as I generally know where I am going.

How long do you think these dashboard computers would stay attached to the dashboard in Liverpool? I imagine crime has hindered development somewhat though I really don't understand why the car makers haven't got together more with some of the computer and gadget makers to create better integrated car systems. It is just beginning to hit mainstream with iPod and iPhone docs as standard but having used a BMW nav system I cannot for the life of me understand why I should pay £2000 extra for that unusable piece of cr@p when they could have integrated a Tom Tom for next to nothing. The new range Rover has a fantastic console system with a dual polarity screen (?) so that the driver sees one image and the passenger another. Pretty cool.

Simple rule this Christmas. If you still sh1t your pants you get a present. If you don't you don't.

As long as the cameras are forward facing then I'm alright jack on my motorbike. If they are rear facing I'll simply have to pop a wheelie past the them so my number plate is hidden. Easy innit.

Yield on the ten year is up 0.15bp today to 3.81.

You can't really blame the individuals who give up the best years of their life tied to a desk from 6.30am until late with the average career lifespan of a mayfly and no transferable skills once it is all over by 35. If they don't make enough money before they burn out then they may as well have done something interesting and fulfilling with their lives instead.

George Orwell was right.

I was watching this in amazement too.Talk about stating the bleeding obvious except that at no point did the "journalist" ask the low on funds lady rather than borrowing money at extortionate rates from the local leg breakers why don't you simply save up for what you want? If you can't afford it then don't buy it.

I am just about to trade in a 15 minute motorcycle ride for a 30 minute + connections both end train ride. It fills me with horror but at least on paper it is a price worth paying. I have to work and my job is in town but my kids are at an age where I don't want them in central London and the choices and thus cost of schooling are very high. I can also in theory trade in my Victorian terrace for a detached house with a decent garden. I hope that the benefits of country living and the increased living space will offset the pain of the commute though I will reserve judgement and rent for the first year just in case.

Keeps the money moving, the other 50p he'll take back in VAT, stamp duty, business rates and parking fines. Poor bankers will probably be forced back to RBS for a loan just to get by. Are RBS paying a dividend at the moment?

Remember the Government takes 50% of any bonus pool. Don't be so sure that Darling doesn't want to pay them.

Absolutely, life should be fun and not the miserable hell that labour and Mandelson advocate because they know that the more miserable sheep there are the more Labour voters there are.