Borrowing on my house to invest - am I crazy?

dunstonh

With profits can still have its place. However, its a small minority of cases now and a limited number of providers. There are also some non MVR versions available from the big two WP providers. However, its only in cases where the fund fits the purpose. Not the situation where it was a "one fund fits all" solution it used to be in the past.

In context of this thread subject, WP wouldnt be appropriate at all.

Tim_L

ReportInvestor wrote:

but only with a MVR (market value reduction) or MVA (market value "adjustor" ) which was concealed from most buyers in the 1980s and 1990s.

We'll have to part company on opinions about with profits, TL. I won't have my name associated with it in any way.

I'm not saying with profits is a product I would buy today. But it is certainly a better product than a GEB, which I think puts GEBs into sharp perspective.

With profits investments were really not designed in the context of today's low inflation environment, so it's not altogether surprising they don't fit too well, but they were not intrinsically bad products - locking in profits (when taken) via a bonus and providing life cover are actually not bad features.

Unfortunately now that there have been shortfalls when used to back mortgages they have gone so far out of fashion with the general public that no financial institution is going to bother much making an effort to deliver growth because there's no-one buying into them. The best they can do is annoy existing customers less, many of whom have already taken action for misselling, and it's not unreasonable that they've decided to move on.

I must also say that one of the reasons for the shortfalls were a change to a low inflation culture, with corresponding reductions in interest rates, which have reduced people's mortgage interest payments massively. So it's hugely debatable that there has been any overall loss: had the savings been invested, they would I think pay most shortfalls. It's very much a case of swings and roundabouts, but possibly people have not noticed the savings coming in incrementally on mortgage interest payments as much as the highly dramatic red letters about endowments with some very painful sounding large numbers attached.

tomstickland

Anyone can make £500 in 6 weeks without very much effort and without straying much outside the big UK bookmakers, and plenty more is available with a little bit more work. I've made something approaching £15,000 since August 2004, all tax free, and all essentially risk free (where there are risks they are mostly connected with making a mistake), though I am doing it more intensively than most and have a fair amount of money - about 12K currently - "invested" (i.e. out with bookmakers). To start out you only need a couple of hundred pounds capital, and for the first year I wasn't using much more than this at any time.

It's by quite some distance the most profitable thing I've learned from this site - it beats stoozing into a cocked hat - and really very easy to do, but for some reason still regarded with suspicion by the mainstream.

I will be looking very soon. A long time ago somebody on a car forum explained to me how they made 100% safe returns on betfair by utilising other peoples' bad betting. Essentially, they looked on the William Hill site for realistic odds on something and then found other users' who had made bad choices. There was something else about it that made it 100% safe. I'll have to come and read. I can't be bothered with arbitrage betting(sp) though.

Tim_L

This is nothing to do with arbitrage, which is a perfectly respectable technique but not for beginners as it needs a lot of capital and returns are small percentages of the outlay - there are some risks too. What matched betting does is to extract bookmaker bonuses pretty much intact. So if a bookmaker offers a £25 bonus free bet, you can expect to get £18-25 of it depending on how much it costs to qualify for the free bet and the conditions of the offer. But this is miles off topic, so I suggest you post any questions on the gambling board in the "easy free money from matched betting thread".

tomstickland

Aye, thanks, I will be looking, I did spend 20 minutes reading some of the stickies in there a few months back.