--- Recession (30)

Hi cups,

I've been following the credit crunch and how it will affect the Uk for the past 6mts. And nearly all economic forcasters or those who work in the futures market predict two things: The credit crunch will be short lived and the effects will not be evenly spread through out the Uk.

In Ireland for a while the Celtic Tiger helped make the Emerald Isle one of the strongest ecomonies in the world with investment coming in from the four corners of the globe. This led to over inflated house prices, which has seen some people fall into the negetaive equity trap.
House prices today are falling but only to a more relastic level..

As for the North of Ireland, it should see of the looming recession, mainly due to several investment conferences at the start of the year where many millions of dollars have been either promised of already put in place..

If the rest of the Uk slip in to the red that blame can only be laid at New Labours policies of spend, spend,spend. When Maggie left office in 1989 and Johnny Boy Major took the reins ( Mr. lets get back to basic's, which he did with Edwina), the Uk was sitting on a surplus of 50/60 Billion. Also a very healthy gold reserve. And Tony, Gorden, Allister (and all his spin docters) squandered it. Evening selling off the gold, when it was 250/300 oz. Today gold is somewhere 700/800 greenback an oz.

Just depends on your buisness plan..1+1=2..Some people think its 1+1=3..

My two bits...

Maybe they do, while I am heading for a slightly colder climate

I am going where the boom is, and that is not here.

I agree. In a recession those with lots of capital can make a 'killing'....... for example, shares in banks are now 'cheap' by historic standards and somebody with spare money might think that this sector is undervalued and a good medium term investment.

I despise banks sincerely - they lied and lied last time we had a property collapse in the UK and 'promised' they would only lend responsibly in the future.... but it pays them to follow the herd instinct and make good paper profits by lending foolishly (e.g. lending somebody five times their self-declared [often false] annual earnings - so that some guy earning 10k per annum could pretend he was earning 20k per annum and borrow 100k which was obviously going to wipe him out with just a couple of percentage points increase in interest rates - remember if interest rates were say 5% and went up to 6% it's an actual increase of 20% NOT 1% in what you have to pay.......)

Once everybody is crowing about how much money they've made on their property it's time to take your profit....... a couple of years ago the average Brit was earning something like £80 per day, but his house was increasing in value by an average of £150 per day....... nothing is for free, and that kind of Mathematics is unsustainable - right?

I had a buyer for my house in the UK at my asking price in June. I decided NOT to sell for personal reasons.

I knew it was financial suicide but I wanted my 'space'..... my house is now back on the market at a price that is 12.5% less than my prospective buyer was happy to pay just three months ago!

I intend selling it now even though it's gone down and shall go down further in value; I believe it'll take at least five years to regain it's former worth, and five years of mortgage payments and related bills would be a waste of money in my present circumstances!

In five years I can easily double the net profit, and hence increase my income - and having a decent income that kicks the crap out of inflation is what counts........ there are too many people who are rich on paper, because of the perceived value of their property, yet (because their income is relatively small), they have to live very frugally. I see zero point in living in a wonderful house that's worth 'loadsa money' if you cannot enjoy a decent lifestyle. Keeping overheads as low as reasonably possible is the key to happiness and being able to afford chocolate whenever you want it!

they say uk is heading for the worse recession in 60 yrs,i often want to go there for good,but when i hear that,perhaps better to stay in little malta