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Help! The House Is On Fire…

Burning House 2

After a cheery week (not) when I’ve written more than once about the perils and pitfalls of UK residential property investing and ownership, here’s something which is hopefully a bit more cheery for a Friday.   Via Twitter, the fount of all knowledge, I found this fabulous, arty website which the photographers amongst you will really appreciate. Its called The Burning House and if you visit, you’ll see it’s self-explanatory. What would you take with you if the house were on fire and can you take a cool photo of it and get it featured on their website? I had a go and [...]

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The Realities of Being a UK Property Investor in 2011

puzzled property investor

Like almost everything I can think of, the realities of being a property investor are very different from those I imagined, although I had been the accidental owner of an informal HMO in the late Eighties and early Nineties, long since repossessed as a casualty of the last crash. This time around, I collected four buy to let flats between June 2004 and December 2007. And lots of my clients have BTL properties too. Given the strange times, I have called a few of them together for a summit so we can try to work out what’s the best thing [...]

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Inside Job The Movie

My nephew and I went to the movies on Wednesday, Orange Wednesday. He’s about to go to University to study Business Accounting so we thought we would take ourselves along to see Inside Job at the refurbed and ridiculously comfy Brixton Ritzy.   Neither of us could remember being so comfy at the movies, in fact I think he nodded off for a few moments.   Not to detract from the movie, just a comment on the plush new seats. If you are remotely interested in the global economic meltdown still so obviously painful and ongoing and you want to understand more [...]

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The Secret Life of Real Estate & Banking

The Secret Life of Real Estate & Banking is a weighty, academic tome by Phillip J. Anderson in which he proves that the real estate cycle follows an ever-repeating pattern approximately every 18 years and he documents this back over the last 200+ years. I have persuaded Phillip to run an event for The Money Gym on Friday 12th November in which we will learn the contents of his book without having to read it, although I am also negotiating with his publisher to have supplies on hand at a reduced price for academics who will want to take it [...]

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Cleanliness and Godliness: A Happy Ending in Nunhead

Yesterday began, bright and breezy, at 8 a.m. with me faciliating a T1ME Focus Day.   The idea is a simple one, join the website by sharing your dream, and one of the services we offer is a fortnightly Focus Day – either 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. or 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.   You turn up and together with the rest of the crew, we each tick off items on our To Do List, generally focussing on the nasty ones like clutter-clearing, filing, accounts and other chores, or Big Projects which need an expanse of 5 hours with a single [...]

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Simplifying & Downshifting: An Update

I am re-reading Simplicity: Easy Ways to Simplify And Enrich Your Life by Elaine St James.   I had to buy another (second hand) copy since, on lending my own copy to a colleague, I remembered how good it is (!) and I thought I would revisit it. My life is simpler than it might be because (in no particular order of importance): I have no TV (although Thank God for iplayer) Consequently I have no TV licence and yes, I’ve read they want us computer watchers to pay, maybe/maybe not though… And I don’t watch or listen to or read [...]

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Women of Property Do An Inventory Check on the South Coast

At 8 a.m. today, my friend, colleague & client Jane and I set out to visit our properties on the South Coast. Despite buying the first one in 2005, we had neither of us seen any of them.   We were able only to inspect from the outside in St Leonards on Sea, Worthing & Littlehampton and I am happy to report we found them somewhat more pleasing than we had expected.   We rounded the whole day off with a cracking lunch at the seafront East Beach Cafe. If you find yourself in the vicinity, make sure to have the Cherry Eaton Mess.  [...]

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