ziknik

I might sign up for some of that myself. STEP1: Take out huge mortgage that I cannot afford STEP2: Default STEP3: Sue HMG for making it possible for me to take out a mortgage that I couldn’t afford

^^ Thanks, that's really useful

Which broker are you using for your options? EDIT: Thanks

I hope you’ve taken a list of all the local silver coin dealers

While you’ve been away: CID have started selling silver Britannia’s and you missed a good offer on silver phillies How can the fake coin be thinner that the real coin? The fake must have platinum in it (?)

CID are a reputable dealer. They wouldn’t send you a fake coin () Phone them and ask about the red(ish) colour. They’ve been very good whenever I have phoned them

Double Post: The Rightmove Survey only monitors the ‘initial’ asking price. Modifications to asking price are not monitored. So the survey will not measure any house that is having its price repetitively cut unless it is re-listed with a new agent. I don’t think it is fair to call this ‘Seller Delusion’. EDIT: And, the Rightmove Survey data should be shifted over by 8 months*. The houses going on the market today are not going to sell today. * or whatever the average selling time is at present.

It’s dead round my way (South Manchester). There are a couple of asking price rises on Property Bee. The vast majority of price moves are falls despite the good news I suspect the recent gains in the Haliwide indices are encouraging sellers to hold out for their asking price. Though I cannot be sure as I haven’t been to a single viewing yet and don’t intend to view anything until Haliwide dips further. Virtually nothing is selling (nothing I am interested in buying). Unfortunately for me, many of the small terraced houses I wanted have been removed from the market.

He’s going to get burgled. I shouldn’t say where I think he lives. But I might be keeping an eye out for elephants next time I am in the area I am thinking of. (I have no intention of burgling anyone)

I bought a small stack of them about three weeks ago. I paid £11.48 each. I expect VAT to be going up in the UK (above 17.5%) soon so it makes sense to load up on silver coins when a buying opportunity comes along. Welcome to GEI btw

The Britannia is not on special anymore. Specials have a buy limit and the title says special in big block letters. http://www.coininvestdirect.com/main.php?a=11&id=322 Must be a coincidence that the price now is the same as the old special price. The silver phillies offer ended in the last few days. They price wasn’t fixed. They were around £11.50.

Certainty. Certainly in my case It was a one ounce Krug for £594 Wasn’t the last offer a one ounce silver philly? – They’ve sold out There was a couple of threads last week. Maybe the week before

I believe the banks agreed (verbally) ‘to maintain lending at 2007 levels’. There's no any legal requirement to lend to anyone. And certianly not targeted lending at homeowners. ‘Maintaining lending at 2007 levels’ could mean more than one thing. The actual meaning of the words were never defined. In any case, mortgage lending was mostly done by foreign lenders who have decided to leave the UK. The Building Socienties are shutting up shop and the UKs biggest mortgage lending banks are all gone too (in no particular order) 1. Northern Rock 2. Bradford and Bingley 3. HBOS 4. Alliance & Leicester Only the Bank of England can support house prices. (I'm not certian of any of the above btw) EDITED

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLNE56F01...ndChannel=11595

GoldMoney uses the London Bullion Market in Europe (?) I'm not sure what they do for their US customers. Edit after post below

I’m losing track of all these stupid schemes. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business...ps-1745114.html

Pro Arrum have them for a reasonable price. I'm not sure if they deliver to the UK http://www.proaurum.de/edelmetallshop/silb...11536613bf8026e

HMG scraps My Choice Homebuy and Ownhome. The money has already been spent anyway. New Build Homebuy and Homebuy Direct are not scrapped. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/eb9dea30-6f34-11...144feabdc0.html

It is my plan to do so in the future using GoldMoney. I can’t at the moment because I haven’t swapped any silver to gold yet (I don’t have any gold at GM) For now, I will stick to buying silver. I have aquired some new funds and will be able to average in throughout the year I think things will get a lot more volatile in the future and allow me to swing trade between the metals. GM has platinum too.

Francs were used by the Bank of International Settlement until very recently (last few years). Pretty much every bank in the world would have accepted them and I bet they still would. The coins will be accepted as money throughout Africa. And also Asia because it is very easy to convert francs in to Tola. 40 Francs = 1 Tola (give or take some rounding) BTW, Bairds produce Tola bars as part of their standard range

The difference between the Kook and Koala prices at CID is unusual. Last year the prices were very similar. In 2008 my average purchase prices were (including delivery) Koala: £14.60 (each) mixed years Kook: £14.46 (each) mixed years

CID are clearly stupid. I paid £14.19 for my first set of Brits. I expected the coins to sell out within minutes. They went up to £14.79 a few minutes after my order and then back down to 14.39. £13.86 is way too cheap. Is there a danger that CID will crash the Britannia prices if they keep selling them this cheap year after year? Yeah, that's right.

Do we have a thread on the Roubini video/interview?

The BofE can increase house prices any time they want by using brokers (like Paragon) to hand out BofE mortgages or another scheme like homebuy, ownhome, etc. Sterling is toast in the long run anyway so it’s not going to make too much difference to the long term outcome. The BofE has the ability to print USD and EUR so they can manage Sterling exchange rates in the short term. I think these swap agreements will stay in place for years. I don’t think they can suppress the gold price forever. I see gold as the only way to protect myself. Stabilising the housing market is much harder than increasing prices so the BofE will probably over egg the support to be on the safe side.

The BofE confirming the[ir] view that stabilisation of house prices [at unsustainable levels] is a good thing http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publication...009/mpc0906.pdf 18 Housing market activity had picked up. The number of loan approvals for house purchase had increased by 8% in April and the preview of the May survey of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors showed further improvement across most housing market activity indicators, with new buyer enquiries and sales both picking up. Both the Nationwide and Halifax measures of house prices had increased in May, the first time that that had happened since August 2007, and had increased by an average of 1.9%. But activity remained subdued, with the level of loan approvals for house purchase less than half of its average of the past decade. In such a thin market there was likely to be greater volatility than usual in housing market indicators. A stabilisation of house prices at current levels would benefit homeowners, limiting the reduction in their net wealth and capping the scale of negative equity, and would provide support to the balance sheet position of banks.