Rather than make New year resolutions I always prefer to set goals a few times a year. I do this as I prefer to make goals several times a year rather than just in january and if you read my earlier post you know that most resolutions made in the new year usually fail.

So what goals will i set for the first quarter of 2008?

Professional Goals

1. Make money online

I make a bit of money offline with my property investments, it would be nice to make some money online. Even though my proffession is actually IT I’ve yet to make any money directly from the web. I’ve started to run google ads on this site and will be looking into other money making ways for this site. I’ll report as much as I can on this blog.

2. Build an extension

I’ve bought many a homes, had a few done up and refurbished, but never extended any of them. My next major project is to extend my own home. Well the new house that I have purchased for me and the misses. I’ll report more on this blog when the plans have been approved by the council.

3. Learn some bookkeeping

Whilst I now run 2 companies I’m finding it really difficult to keep track of all the expenses and profits with the old spreadsheets that used to work when I owned 2 houses and had 2 tenants. I need to either learn some good book keeping practices, find some good software or employ somebody to help me.

Personal Goals

1. Get married

With my wedding in April I can’t really get this wrong. I would like to help my fiance to organise this though as she is doing most of it on her own at the moment. awwwww

2. Do classess at the gym

My fitness has taken a bit of a battering lately. to help me improve my CV I think it would be beneficial to join some of the clasess at my gym. Boxercise and circuits yes, bums and tums no.

Do you make new years resoulutions?

Do you find that making new years resolutions like quit smoking, lose weight, work harder, go to the gym etc. are bound to fail? Research shows that 9 out of 10 new years resoulutions fail within days of making them. I have compiled a list of 5 reasons this may happen:

1. You are trying to “not” do something.

Because you are not trying for something positive, it can be harder to acheive. Make your resolution about something you want and think about how to achieve it. If you want to work harder, think about why. It maybe as you’ve always want to buy that dream car. Think how you will achieve this, pull in extra shifts, blog more etc.

2. You haven’t written it down.

You should always write down resolutions or goals that you make. Spends some time to make it look good. Hang it on the wall, make yourself proud of YOUR resolution. Also if the resolution is written down and in plain sight, you aint gonna forget it soon!

3. You’re trying to fly before you can walk

People always try to achieve mountainous tasks without any planning, they almost always fail. If you’ve always wanted to learn how to swim don’t just turn up at the pool in your shorts and go for it. Find out about taking lessons, go with a friend who can swim, so they can comment on your current ability. You should always break up tasks into smaller steps.

4. You’ve only promised yourself

If only you know about your resolution, if you fail, then you’re only letting yourself down. Make sure everybody knows. Tell all your friends and family. Make it well known what you are trying to do. This goes back to 2. if you write it down and display it somewhere then more people will known. You wouldn’t want to let the world down now would you?

5. Don’t give up

Too many people give up when then come to even a minor problem. You must be strong. Keep positive about your resolution. It helps to think about the likely problems and how you’ll deal with them. If they do occur it’ll be easier to overcome them.

Happy to New year to you all for 2008.

Can you believe the bare cheek of these ladies? hehe.

Wishing you all the health and lots of wealth, may 2008 be a prosperous and happy year for you !!

How did you celebrate NYE? me and my friends went out for a meal in Iguanas restaurant, then ended up in our local kareoke bar to sing the night away. We’re all really good singers hence we didn’t leave the place till 5am. Luckily my fiance was with us and got there just in time to see in 2008.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Christmas time, mistletoe and wine
Children singing christian rhyme
With logs on the fire and gifts on the tree
A time to rejoice in the good that we see

I found this upsidedown Xmas tree in the John Lewis in Nottingham its quite different I think you’ll agree. I think all Christmas trees should be like this one. It makes sense to me as there is alot more space to put all your presents under the tree. I’m not quite sure where the fairy/star should sit at the top though!

A time for giving, a time for getting,
A time for forgiving and for forgetting.
Christmas is love, christmas is peace,
A time for hating and fighting to cease.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

The keywords that I compete for on my property sites are always increasing. When I first started using adwords for my sites about 3 years ago it came to about 50p per click, I considered that expensive. It can now be as much as £10 per single click. That click may not even bring you any business, I’ve found that it may take up to 10 clicks for 1 person to complete the online form, it can then take 10-15 of these leads before we can convert one to a sale.

That’s about £100 for a lead, which then works out to about £1500 to achieve a sale!!

It’s surprising then that there are still so many new entrants to this market. Just try typing “sell my house quickly” into google and see the hundreds of responses. It is my estimate that there is a new site up every week. Currently there must be something like 200 sites advertising quick property buying. All these sites are just simply competing for the same commodity, its no wonder than that the adwords prices have shot through the roof.

Increasing number of online sellers?

Are there more sellers to sell to the increasing number of online property buying companies? Has the bottom fallen out of the internet bargain property finding websites? Have all the buyers raised the prices for everyone involved due to competition?

One thing is for sure and that is Google is certainly making a packet from its adwords revenue.

I’m still waiting for the court date for my unpaying tenant, so that I can eventually get them out and get new tenants who DO pay rent in. I’m trying not to think about it too much as its not very nice to throw someone out of their home. But the fact is I really don’t want to pay any for them to live there every month, they should be paying me. The courts have set a date for Jan 2008, hopefully all will go well then.

More Rent Arrears

Just to pee me off even more another tenant who has had payment problems in the past has stopped paying rent, even though they are only meant to pay £85 per week, they can’t even afford that. I can’t believe it. They have about 10 weeks worth of arrears now. I must be strong and send them their final warning.

I feel really bad sending them notices when its so close to Xmas as they really shouldn’t be thinking about losing the roof over their heads during their Xmas holiday. Christmas is a time when we should celebrate with our family opening presents, eating turkey and all sit round the TV to watch the queen’s speech.

Hang On…

Do they think about me?? Do they think if we don’t pay our rent then our landlord may not have money for Xmas?? NO THEY DON’T The fact that they haven’t come to me with anything not even excuses has made me realise that I should not be considerate to them as they are not too me. I run a business and I should be business like. No matter what time of year, if tenants haven’t paid then I need to be procedural and proceed like clockwork. Get the warnings out to them, get the notices out, get them bad tenants out!!

The HM Treasury have contacted me as they would like more information on the Sell and Rent Back type of business. They sent me a letter asking me to fill in a questionaire as the media have shown concerns in these types of transactions.

This is the letter they sent me:

The wording of the letter:

As you will be aware there has been some recent interest in the sale and rent back market. Mortgage industry representatives and consumer groups have expressed some concerns about the experience of consumers considering these types of products.

Her Majesty’s Treasury, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the Ministry of Justice, working alongside the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), are therefore seeking to establish further and better information on the sale and rent back market, and the role that these schemes play in the UK housing market.

We would be very grateful for your response to the attached questionnaire, which will help us to understand the market from an industry perspective. We would be happy to discuss this issue with you directly.

HM Treasury Concerns

Their concerns are totally understandable and I will help them in everyway they can to learn more about “sale and rent back” transactions. With many horror stories from families who have sold their homes to rent them back its no wonder that these transactions have been highlighted by the media.

I reported recently about Repossessions Stopped going into liquidation and getting their tennants evicted. I’ve also heard of other horror stories of families who have sold their homes at big discounts to rent them back, but only to find their homes in the next property auction listing to be sold on by the investors.

Lets Regulate

As the industry is unregulated there are many unscrupulous and unethical operators who are just out to make a very quick buck out of desperate and naive people. Anything that can be done to weed these operators out will be welcomed by the handfull of ethical and hard working landlords. It is very annoying that us honest and ethical landlrds have to be tarnished with the same brush as the cowboys of the industry.

Some of the good landlords in the industry are dishearted that the FSA cannot regulate sale and rent backs as they are not a financial product as such, they are property trancactions. They are working together to set up a trade body for which a code of conduct must be followed. I welcome the move, I am however concerned that a trade body will not get rid of the cowboys as mandatory membership cannot be enforced. Not yet at least.

Thats right Interest rates down to 5.5% and I’m about a week late to report this but is it really news?

The Bank of England last week dropped their base rate to 5.5% the first drop in rates in 2 years. Economists predict that rate will reach 5% by mid next year.

Save £21, Merry Christmas!!

On a mortgage of £100k the annual interest is £5750 at the old rate. At the new rate it would be £5500. Thats a whole £250 cheaper a year, on someones monthly mortgage payments thats a whopping £21 cheaper every month. Nothing really to right home about, thats less then £1 per day cheaper.

Interesting things are happening on the new mortgage side of things though. Confidence in lower interest rates for the near future is high. Fixed rates are falling, lenders are lowering their fat arrangement fees, things in general are looking better for investors. The best rate for investors at the moment is from..

Yup you guessed it BMS. Birmingham Midshire Solutions have released a 5.09% 3 year fixed rate with only 1.5% arrangement fee. This is THE best rate to come along in months so I bet investors will be scrambling to get it. I would love to take advantage of the new rate, but i’ve got to find a house to buy first!

I’ve seen this video about a possible technology bubble on several sites and still think its well funny.
Why not put it on my blog too too:

youtube took down the original due to some silly lawsuit. Its still on another site though:

Is there a technology bubble? Is face book really worth $15 billion?
I’m not too sure about that but this video sure is funny i like the part about the sausage fest.

As of December 14, 2007 any property that is being advertised for sale in England and Wales are going to require a Home Information Pack (HIP).

Purpose of the Home Information Packs

The Home Information Packs were introduced by the British government in an effort to lessen the rising amounts of incomplete house sales. Before the Home Information Packs was introduced, most of the details needed by the purchaser could not be gotten until an offer to buy had been made. This situation created issues for the buyer in relation to the state of the property and the legality of the documents presented by the seller. In most cases money would already have been spent before this information is received. The result of this is usually an attempt by the purchaser to renegotiate the sale agreement with the seller, which can lead to delays in closing the purchase and eventually the deal falls through. These failed transactions have been estimated to have incurred losses for buyers of over £1,000,000 every day.

The different costs associated with housing purchases include legal fees, searches and valuations. In order to bring about a reduction in the level of losses, both financial and in resources used, when a housing transaction is terminated, the government has sought to speed up the process through reducing loss time. A good idea in theory, the execusion though has been rather poor.

The searches performed on a property are usually only done by the purchasors solicitor, but now these have to be done as part of the HIP from the seller. This is a good idea however the drawbacks are that these searches are only valid for 6 months and there is NO OBLIGATION on the purchasors solicitors side to accept these searches, thus duplicating cost as the purchasors solicitor does their own searches.

Contents of the Home Information Packs

The Home Information Packs contain vital information about the property being sold, including the following:

• Contents index
• A statement which summarises the terms of sale
• A new homes warranty if needed
• Proof of title
• Energy Performance Certificate
• Completed searches, which includes local authority, drainage and water search
• Commonhold documents if needed
• Any leasehold documents if necessary

If there are items that should be in the Home Information Pack that is not there, then the contents index should give an explanation for their omission. If there is an agreement to provide the missing documents later, it must be done within twenty-eight days.

HOW buyers and sellers should benefit

Buyers should benefit because the Home Information Pack gives them vital information on the property they are contemplating buying, without having to pay for it and any unexpected surprises when they buy the property. Sellers should also benefit as they avoid the delays associated with misinformation about the property, so the buyer will be making their decision based on adequate and accurate information.

It will take time, but in the long run the HIP’s should benefit buyers and sellers of property.

The Home Information Packs are available from your estate agent and the cost will be added on to the sale fee.