Str

IveSeenTheLight

mewbie wrote: »

What is amazing is that not one single person every admits to having made a mistake. Not one.

I'll be the first. I should have got into BTL big time in 2001, gambled everything and got out in 2006. Would have made a fortune.

Anyone else?

Should have, would have, could have...........

I should have not crashed and written off my first car, but I did.
Cost me a fortune and ended up driving a worse car as a result.

We all make mistakes, mistakes however is actually doing something.
Your example is not a mistake, but a regret

mewbie_2

Regrets I have a few, but then again too few to mention. No it was a mistake. Every stupid twit I knew was getting into pwoperty, and I made the mistake of thinking they were stupid twits.

Actually thought I was too chicken. Borrowing 200k or whatever frightened me.

Pobby

I thought the idea was to cash in and hopefully the interest from your STR pot would finance all or a goodly portion of the rent. Well that ain`t happening. A co worker did just that but when we last talked about him getting back into the market he said that in his area no one was keen on dropping prices.

It`s a bit like my calculations on retiring a bit early and moving to Spain. Thought I had sussed out a trouble free way of doing it and, in truth, spent a great deal of time researching both here and over there.

I didn`t figure in the collapse of sterling. Now I would be paying a lot more( well maybe not with the property crashes I am hearing about ) but certainly as my income would be UK based, I would be receiving a lot less.

The other major thing is that the cost of living has risen in Spain.

Another thing I got horribly wrong was thinking that IRs would go up. Never did I expect the current base rate. So I have got it wrong on lots of accounts. The only thing is these are pretty unique times so I would have to have been rather more than clever.

Cleaver

mewbie wrote: »

What is amazing is that not one single person every admits to having made a mistake. Not one.

Ooh, financial mistakes. Now here's a thread where I can hold my own.

We made two mistakes at the same time. When we moved in early 2007 we decided to rent out the house we lived in and buy a place in our new location. In retrospect we should have sold our house and rented in our new location before deciding what to do. This is from a financial viewpoint of course.

But then it's easy to look back with the benefit of hindsight. A lot of people were predicting either further rises and / or stagnation of house prices, and I bought in to this. Wrong obviously, but that's what I thought too. We also loved our old house, were moving a significant distance from friends and family to a city we didn't know too well and our job situation was that I had a 12 month contract and Mrs C couldn't get a transfer, so had no job. The idea was that if we moved here and didn't like it, or couldn't find further jobs, we could move back to our old house. If we liked it (which we do) we could sell our old house after about two or three years, sell the cheap flat we bought in our new location, and buy a house up here with the proceeds. And, to be fair, that's still the plan that's unfolding, despite the losses.

We're both in secure, substantive employment now, love where we live and are planning to stay. As most on here know, we sold our old house for a bit of a loss, but nothing too significant (especially as we had no voids on our property so someone paid our mortgage for us for two and a half years). At the peak values in 2007 our two properties only added up in value to around the average UK house price at the time, so we were very careful not to overstretch ourselves.

So financially, we made two mistakes. But then I'm not sure I'd do anything differently now - there were so many factors other than the finances to consider.

Our third financial mistake is that we're looking at houses at the moment. Believe me, as soon as we buy the market will head south as we have a track record in this type of things. I'll let you know.

If there's anything around about mistakes made in your love life I'd also be happy to write a substatial post for that thread too.

Pobby

Cleaver, it`s so refreshing to read that above post. The way some people describe there lives on here makes me feel a positive failure.

Cleaver

Pobby wrote: »

Cleaver, it`s so refreshing to read that above post. The way some people describe there lives on here makes me feel a positive failure.

No probs Pobbs.

I was going to start a thread recently (but forgot) asking the regulars on here what thoughts, experiences or actions they've had that we wouldn't normaly expect. Maybe a property Chucky has bought which has been a complete disaster from start to finish that he wishes he has nothing to do with, whether ISTL ever wakes up in a sweat because of his mortgages, moments of real doubt that Hamish has had about the property market, Brit1234 talking about moments where he's thought that maybe Feb 09 this year might have been the time to buy, Dopester stating that maybe he's a bit risk-averse and often wonders whether he should throw caution to the wind every now and again, a post from Nearlynew admitting that sometimes he posts slogans that he has no idea what they mean but he read them on a website somewhere and thinks they sound cool. That last one was a joke Nearly. Well, kind of. None of the above makes anyone a poorer person for it, probably a bit stronger if anything.

I'm like you Pobby, I read this forum and am always surprised how unshakable people are in their thoughts, beliefs, opinions and ideologies. I spend life happily reading all I can as a (relatively) intelligent guy and still spend most of my time in an confused fog, changing my mind and opinion every few days, generally not knowing in what direction anything is going and constantly questioning my decisions. I suspect most are like this in real life too. At least I hope they are.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Cleaver wrote: »

moments of real doubt that Hamish has had about the property market, .

:rotfl:

I've had a few of those.....

I thought the spring bounce would be over by June and the real recovery wouldn't happen til Spring 2010. I didn't see that the recovery would start last february, but it did.

I actually believed that house prices could drop by 35% on a national level, and posted accordingly frequently.

Last winter, I was pretty frustrated that the government had acted too slowly and with insufficient levels of funding to address the problem. I looked at other countries responses, particularly Australia, and saw how easy it was to avert the falls we were seeing through massive direct stimulus, as opposed to the indirect and lengthier process we were taking.

For a while, I really did believe that prices would fall by 35%, and I knew that if they did it would destroy the wider economy in the process.

With the benefit of hindsight, and being away from the confirmation bias factor of hpc, I see now that of course it would never have been allowed to happen, and that the government knew full well it would indeed have crippled the wider economy.

Still, they had me worried for a while...

dopester

Cleaver wrote: »

As most on here know, we sold our old house for a bit of a loss, but nothing too significant (especially as we had no voids on our property so someone paid our mortgage for us for two and a half years).

Didn't you buy the first home in 2003ish? So you also had a few years living down there before moving up North way around 2007 and renting home1 out, where otherwise you'd have been paying £8-10K rent (say £30K?).. selling for a little 'loss' in 2009. Taking it all in, have to really made a loss?

Yes Mr.Insightful, I am risk adverse because my interpretation of market conditions require such risk-adverse discipline, for the time-being.

You're now considering moving again, and a house? Same area? What has brought this on?

I detect some risk-adverseness within you too, with your thought of market values heading south if you proceeded. Your caution might not be so different to my own, as these are important decisions. With poor choices on important decisions, it can impact for years to come.

~You are overly cautious, cousin, sent the Sober Council. ~We are the Zetetic Elench. We have ways of dealing with such matters. Our experience is not without benefit, especially once we are fore-warned.

~And I am of the Culture, and I hate to see such risks being taken. Are you sure you have the full agreement of your human crews concerning such a foolhardy attempt at contact?

Cleaver

dopester wrote: »

Didn't you buy the first home in 2003ish? So you also had a few years living down there before moving up North way around 2007 and renting home1 out, where otherwise you'd have been paying £8-10K rent (say £30K?).. selling for a little 'loss' in 2009. Taking it all in, have to really made a loss?

Yeah, made the offer in Nov / Dec 03 I think and moved in early 04. I can't get my head around whether we've made a loss or not really. Difficult to say and all depends how you look at it I guess. The main thing is that we're happy and financially okay, so if it has cost us a few quid along the way it doesn't matter too much. You live and learn and all that.

dopester wrote: »

Yes Mr.Insightful, I am risk adverse because my interpretation of market conditions require such risk-adverse discipline, for the time-being.

So, do you ever think that your cautious view is a mistake? Is there times over the past few years where you've thought, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."?

dopester wrote: »

You're now considering moving again, and a house? Same area? What has brought this on?

I'm getting old, basically. I like our flat, I like the location, and everything is pefectly fine. But... I'm just sick of living in a flat. I'm working from home more and more and want an office. I want space to stick our stuff. I like cooking and I want a big kitchen. I want a room which we can keep as a bedroom for friends and family, rather than an office / library / sofa bed / art studio room we have at the moment. None of these factors are essential, but all are considerations and making us want to move. I think with the downturn and the lower values of the flats we are in, we get a few more students and 'less desirable' (what a horrible phrase) people moving in. Don't get me wrong, it's fine most of the time, but we get woken up maybe once a twice a month now by parties (we never did when we cam here) and I'm just a bit fed up of it.

Aren't you from my neck of the woods Dopester? I'll send you a PM where we are looking, you might have some useful guidance on areas. But yeah, we have a region in mind and the type of house.

dopester wrote: »

I detect some risk-adverseness within you too, with your thought of market values heading south if you proceeded. Your caution might not be so different to my own, as these are important decisions. With poor choices on important decisions, it can impact for years to come.

Yeah, I guess so. We sold the last house because there's about 25% of my mind that says we'll see another 15%+ come off house prices. Most of me thinks otherwise, but we didn't want all our money in one asset that could see big losses and our life priorities changed. Hence the sell.

PasturesNew

Pobby wrote: »

I thought the idea was to cash in and hopefully the interest from your STR pot would finance all or a goodly portion of the rent.

I never planned to do that, the interest was supposed to grow the money at about 5-7% gross for 5 years or so, while I got a well paid job for 5 years, then bought a house.

So, I was wrong on 2 counts.

Then I discovered all these women who stayed at home all day and did sweet fanny adams (housewives) ... and I thought "I want some of that ... doing nothing thing". So I am enjoying my "gap years".