What would you do with 250k ?

mike88

Jonbvn wrote: »

Based on your argument, investing is therefore better than property purchase. .

But I also said this:

"Put another way if posters on here lived in a Housing Association property would they invest £250k on shares?

"I mentioned property purely because that is a way of getting out of the rented sector; if you live in a property you buy yourself that is not an investment."That is purely my opinion not a statement of fact.

Would you for example live in a Housing Association property and then invest £250k on shares?

I understand that using dates can be meaningless but the reason I did that was to illustrate even long term investing can lose money. I mentioned AIM shares because they have the potential to lose (and make) serious amounts of money. On other threads I have seen such shares recommended to novice investors which many will probably agree is not a particularly good idea.

bendix

mike88 wrote: »

That is an incrediblty shallow response with no facts to back your statements up. If you read my post above you will see that I have at least tried to justify what I have said.

For somebody who has posted nearly 4000 times in less that two and a half years you clearly have a lot to say for yourself but seem remarkably lacking on this occasion when you are asked for an explanation to justify your statement.

What do you mean by this:

"....it's this sort of hairbrained ill-informed and trite comment that makes MSE not only useless, but actually relatively dangerous"

You also refer to ......"the heart of the definition of investing". What is that exactly

You might disagree with me -that's fine - but could you please explain if you can how my view is relatively dangerous.

What is surely more dangerous is for a novice investor to invest all of a £250k windfall in shares.

At the end of the day I have tried to justify my comments but clearly you cannot be bothered or cannot justify yours which seem nothing more than a couple of shallow soundbites.

I do hope that the rest of your many thousands of comments are rather more constructive than your attempts on this thread because if they are not we can at least agree that MSE would serve no useful purpose.

This.

Because I'm a bit bored of the discussion now.

mothmanxxx

I would take the plunge but shop around first, maybe try auctions or renovate a property that would return a profit, if needed, immidiately.

jimjames

mike88 wrote: »

In a lottery you can get something and nothing ........and a bit in between.

So you think a tracker is OK. Surely it depends when you invest and your time horizon. The FTSE 100 reached its peak of 6930 in December 1999. Eleven years and a bit later the FTSE 100 index stands at around 5950. So in the last 11 and a bit years even a solid tracker would have lost 15+% of your money which on £250k is around £37500.

We'll have to disagree on the lottery. The two times I played I lost my quid and didn't get any return at all. I'm not sure what the "in between" return on the lottery is - as far as I am aware you either lose everything or get something. What you get back may be £10 back or £1 million. At least with tracker funds you are very, very unlikely to lose everything which statistically will happen at least 9/10 times on the lottery.

As posted by Jonbvn with dividends you would not be sitting on a loss. I would also not recommend investing a sum like that in one go but to phase it to avoid the kind of peak that occurred in 1999.

I suggested the portfolio of IT shares purely because the OP doesn't seem keen on a property. Personally I would buy the property as it gives me a roof over my head not as an investment.

padington

I'm keen to buy a place dont get me wrong but buying into a housing market that is in decline could be a poor move. My option is to travel and teach with a ballanced portfolio. The housing minister has said the current housing policy is effectively stagflation. The bank of England has warned interest rates will have to go up to 5% soon. The country is in huge debt. Many normal people are in an even worse financial position. We have a cost cutting regime just about to hit in which we have no real idea how bad its going to be apart from we know its going to be bad. On top of that the housing food chain is not working, the younger generation cant buy the small flats to let the next people buy the bigger flats etc. Money is pouring into commodies but not property at all as is stands.

More I look at it more i think it very unwise to invest everything into the UK property Market as things stand (unless its an exclusive top London location property). Problem is, I'm not sure what is the best other course of action.

I'm tempted to say 80% in a tracker fund 15% in gold and silver and 5% in other select shares for 6 months to allow a Sabatical and see how things are looking in the UK after the coalitions austerity cuts package has started to bite. However will speak to an IFA, anyone know of a good one ?