TestIcicle

Hatred is a very low vibration but that mortgage advertising sure brings out the heebee jeebies in me man. Like the devil offering something in exchange for your soul (excuse the hyperbole). Assisted by, ooh, just three examples of the horridness of UK renting: 1. Terrible UK renting rules for tenants - damn the assured shorthold tenancy! 6 months minimum term! a mere 2 month landlord notice period and don't be surprised to hear a "get out of my house!" 2. Insecurity of UK rental tenure for tenants. What happens if when the landlord defaults on a loan secured on the property or even the mortgage itself? See ya later tenant scum, out yer go on yer bum! 3. Loads of cynical add-on admin fees by unregulated letting agencies who "forget" to mention an original contract can just be left to roll on indefinitely on a monthly basis, and insist, pester and nag both tenant and landlord to sign up to another year's tenancy, only to charge them BOTH an admin fee. Go capitalism! Housing in this country has become the new religion/politics. It's the new topic of taboo at dinner parties. Speak up either way and be damned, for in the same social groupings I'm noting the disparity and silent resentment from those traditional HPC-ers (a flavour of whom may reside here) versus the loadsamoney MSE-ers who "loaded up" and pity those too "unfortunate" not to "achieve" as much as they have somehow (er, so far??) gotten away with.

I love the Daily Mail. Masochistically. It's there to whip you up into a frenzy like George Orwell's 2-minute hate. A guilty pleasure of mine is to go to a particularly controversial ignorant news item in the Mail and check out the "best rated" and "worst rated" comments... And the top rated comment is to bin this art if your kid brought it home from school. Such pity I have for that guy's kid. BEST COMMENTS

Have I missed something? I idly read something about the entire landmass disappearing altogether as part of the 2012 shenanigans. I was under the impression the geographical country of Japan did still exist at this exact juncture of time/space. But what do I know? Anything could happen in the next 24 hours.

I thought Japan was set to be swallowed by the sea sometime soon anyway*? The advantage being that if your home, being a physical asset, is smaller, you practically lost much less in this scenario, if you survive that particular apocalypse. -- *That's what some soothsayers are proclaiming anyway... on "another" thread...

I think it looks quite attractive if you had a legitimate need for a (whisper it) "city crash pad". I have colleagues who have 2 bedroom flats in London where they live in the week, alone, whilst the family homes are in places like Cambridge and Manchester. Is it not perhaps more economical and ethical for these 2nd homers to have these smaller and flexible apartment spaces, and leaving the 1 and 2 bed flats to the young singles and couples to have as first time buyers, just as they start out in life. It's just a case of understanding the market. If these little homes aren't overpriced (ha ha) they could fill a handy niche. But absolutely agree it would be hellish for a couple with pets, kids and who dared to use their own bikes instead of Boris's!

I love this site. I don't contribute too much, but lurk avidly. Losing G0ldfinger is a massive downer. I thought GEI was above this. I suppose we're all human... apart from the aliens amongst us...

Hehe. That's right. It's all concrete and gangs and drugs and slums. All of South London is like that. And it's best we remember it as that as it's waaaay cheaper than the unattainable yet oddly fashionable Stokey <prayer>Dear God, please let me get a £400k bedshit in guncrimetastic Hackney) </prayer>. ;-)

LOL. Not to LIVE in Canada Water. Please re-read my (admittedly hastily-scribbled) post. Canada Water is basically Evilbankerville NOT where my mate is considering to buy, but instead it is its employees to whom he is looking to LET, due to its connection to the ELLX (London Overground) in southern suburbs, e.g. Brockley, Crystal Palace... Becoming increasingly gentrified and visibly more wealthy, even amidst TEOTWAWKI. And LOL again that only "nice" zone 2 places are in North London... oh, THAT old myth! ;-) North London is profoundly unaffordable to mere normals either to rent or buy and therefore hugely overrated. Lived in Crouch End for just under a year before I got fed up with all the wannabe actors, luvvies and landed gentry. Hampstead, Primrose Hill, St Johns Wood, Camden, Belsize Park can all f**k right off according to Joe Mortal. And yet further LOLz. Please understand I don't at all disagree with your analysis, but it (deliberately?) misses the point. Those types of slaveboxes are clearly unwise investments, ugly and shoddily built. I share your belief they can easily end up as the new social housing. However, there are definitely nice converted flats in zone 2-3 heading to the leafy south on the London Overground which has a direct link (<20minutes) to Evilbankerville. EDIT (a clarification of my previous post): You see. I even slag off Canada Water myself!

Thanks for the responses to my friend's uncommon scenario everybody. Very much appreciated. As someone renting and saving (still considering a first home purchase though) TestIcicle finds it hard to imagine the thoughts/feelings of somebody who has a sudden £200k to do something meaningful... and responsible! Interesting to see that some say in the circumstances it's not totally insane. I chatted to him on the phone on my way home from work this evening to relay some of your comments. Borassic's suggestion to split it up into things like PMs, blue chip companies and stuff like Personal Assets Trust (ticker PNL), which was "up 10% this year", was met with a blunt response: The background here is that his uncle has traded privately for yonks, and trading is/was his prime source of income I believe. My mate tells me of the time he went round their house when he was 11, and was overawed by what he saw in the study room: he counted no less than 13 CRT monitors. His uncle has been very successful in the past, but also experienced some major "bad luck" in the late 90s (not sure what/how - Asian crisis??) led the family to downsize their house and move to a rather less spectacular part of town. They survived, but their nephew (my mate) is not attracted to the level of intellectual application to the discipline, and even then dealing with the seemingly wild risks involved. Contrary 50sQuiff's assertion that zone 2 is out of reach pricewise, the £200K will definitely get a 1 or 2 bed flat in the zone 2 and 3 areas he's been looking at. Perhaps not prime in the traditional sense, but he's looking at places like New Cross and Brockley and beyond, focusing on the East London Line extension (London Overground) to Canada Water (rats' paradise!) - he explained to me he wants to pitch these places to graduate bankers, who are building their career before they earn enough to buy their own places outright (lol - how this country disturbs me). He's less than chuffed about the practical stuff of being a landlord, and says he has already been looking at various insurances, but hasn't yet looked into the detail of agency fees etc. He's got a full time job so he is basically keen just to grow the capital with minimal risk and effort (don't we all!!). Trouble is though I'm doing the worrying about this for him. He's one of my best mates, was the best man at my wedding. I'm just trying to watch out for him without wanting to give him any dumb advice. For where I am on the investing front, I have put a modest amount into PMs but am worried if gold is at a sort of peak (yes, I'm familiar with the arguments). I remember thinking this way in 2003 re: property - how well did that thinking play out for me, eh?! I'll give you a clue: I continue to rent and save and try not to have too many more moves forced upon me by incompetent dumbarse landlords. Perhaps it's the dumbarse landlords that cause me to be biased against my mates becoming another "flea" even if he IS aiming at bankers' money. Anyway, thanks again. I might be still very early on in my own investment education, but I don't think I'd be being as gung-ho as my mate if I was in his situation!

So what about, say, if you had a £200K lump sum from, say, inheritance? A good friend of mine is in that situation and they are keen to buy a property outright to rent out. They're looking at a nice low-maintenance flat aimed at young professionals in London, say zone 2-3. In supersimplistic terms they think believe they can rent out such a place for £1000 a month, so if buying for £200K they figure that's a 6% yield. I verify this having rented these kinds of places myself, for that kind of rent, in the particular area my friend is looking at. I think my friend is seeing me as a potential customer!! They've not had or needed the £200K before, so its liquidity is not of huge necessity to them. In fact the opposite would be true, as they've been asking me how secure the banks are. Yeah, asking me!! LOL, as if I know anything - but they know of my economy/politics nerdiness. But of course I've told them about the max £85K savings protection limit per institution and warned them about multiple brands belonging to one Group e.g. Marks and Spencer being HSBC. I've suggested investing in other stuff but they're just not interested: not only are they saying they wouldn't know where to start, but there's a genuine (sensible!!) fear that they would lose money and potentially swiftly. A fool and their money, and all that... They are super-keen to protect their newly-gotten wealth, and whilst it might seem paradoxical to chuck the money into what can be seen currently to be a depreciating asset, the sheer "realness" of a property. My friend has slight ethical concerns (but only slight!) about the idea of landlords pushing out FTBs, but reasons this is London and there will always be a market for young professionals who don't plan to be in London forever. My friend also rented for a few years so kind of has a "what goes around comes around" sort of philosphy. Relatively unconcerned about the plight of the youth..... Because of an outright purchase, voids periods are not really a concern. So my friend is in a interestingly fortuitous situation to have this much capital to invest. I am genuinely at a loss as to how to challenge the apparent straightforwardness of their proposition. So here I am asking a (usually pretty friendly) bunch of strangers on the internet! ;-) Seriously I would be interested to see what people think, seeing as you're (presumably??!) more experienced in handling larger lumps of capital than Joe Average like me. Thanks

In the olden days I might've posted this on HPC, but I too was banned. It might be somewhat quiet on the old housing front, but it doesn't stop some agents' utterly futile efforts: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-31522936.html?premiumA=true (via property bee) That's right, keep changing the date of the deadline of the mythical bidding auction! Really, this sort of LYING behaviour ought to be banned.

So what? They'll keep squeezing till the pips squeak. I'm waiting for another "you've never had it so good" moment. Followed by more riots. Won't happen without a fight. Despite my cynicism above, this is enlightening (once you get over the paranoid headline): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14916238 And even more of surprise to my cynical self was this: If they did it, what are the odds of it happening here despite the Tegraph NIMBY efforts? Here's another nicely rational take on "the rather juvenile" argument of OH NOES THEY'S CONCRETING OVER THE COUNTRYSIDE WTF: http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/going-bananas-over-the-countryside/6517759.blog You'd've thought so, wouldn't you? [edited to include the Inside Housing article reference) Ha! not heard this acronym before: are you a BANANA? *Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone

Did you mean http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14909066 ? About time someone started speaking up about this sort of thing! I did also see the Telegraph's "Hands of our Land" campaign: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/8761056/Planning-reforms-green-belt-will-have-no-protection-despite-promises-of-ministers.html

I recall in a thread seeing that someone reckoned it earned £3k a month. Have not since been successful in re-locating that statement. I could have dreamt it and/or it could have been wrong. Hope that helps! EDIT: Separately it is "allegedly" worth >$300K (from http://www.evaluateanywebsite.com/)...