Where are your savings and/or investments going?

grizzly1911

chucknorris wrote: »

My attitude to risk that I have made my money now and the only way that I can lose it is by being too greedy, so I am happy to adapt to a lower risk/lower reward approach. So as you say I am only comparing potential returns against other current alternatives rather than the past performance of my properties, I realize that I will never see that level of performance again.

Have you had a play on something like trustnet?

Using the analysis tools on there? Takes a lot of effort out of the mass trawl. With their multi plot charting and portfolio tools you can compare and play around with portfolio mixes, even put some fantasy portfolio s together and watch progress for a bit first. Also allows you to track performance easily.

chucknorris

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Have you had a play on something like trustnet?

Using the analysis tools on there? Takes a lot of effort out of the mass trawl. With their multi plot charting and portfolio tools you can compare and play around with portfolio mixes, even put some fantasy portfolio s together and watch progress for a bit first. Also allows you to track performance easily.

No, but thanks I may have a look at it.

grizzly1911

chucknorris wrote: »

I don't agree, we have 8 properties in London which are doing well and making good profits and are also are above 2007 peak levels.

Our house in Dorking is our home and I didn't even sell it when a developer offered me 100k over market value, so I won't be selling it now.

Is your home included in the % split you provided?

chewmylegoff

I am about 65% cash on 7 days notice or less, 10% in ns&i index linked deposits, 20% equities and 5% corporate bonds. (Latter 2 almost entirely in funds as work PA dealing policy makes it impossible to invest effectively in individual instruments).

chewmylegoff

chucknorris wrote: »

Hmm thats interesting, can I buy gold with a mortgage, offset the mortgage interest against tax and rent the gold out to achieve a decent yield?

No! Oh well count me out then.

You can't really live in gold either. Well you could but it would be pretty expensive and people might steal your walls.

chucknorris

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Is your home included in the % split you provided?

Yes it was, because it came from a 'what are you worth' thread (on here) so I should adjust it to only half. Half because my wife hasn't paid anything for our home yet. Her mother lives in her house in Hackney rent free, so I said she that didn't have to pay me half until she gets that house, back. I will edit those % now to reflect that change.

EDIT: they look a bit more balanced now (but obviously still light in shares):

23% cash savings
10.5% pension
6.5% investments (shares)
60% property

chucknorris

chewmylegoff wrote: »

You can't really live in gold either. Well you could but it would be pretty expensive and people might steal your walls.

That was more or less the sarcastic reply I was going to give him but I deleted it to avoid yet another pointess arguement. Although I did end up being just as sarcastic I suppose.

chewmylegoff

chucknorris wrote: »

I don't agree, we have 8 properties in London which are doing well and making good profits and are also are above 2007 peak levels.

Our house in Dorking is our home and I didn't even sell it when a developer offered me 100k over market value, so I won't be selling it now.

Personally if I had 8 properties in London then If I wanted to increase my investments I would just look at getting more properties rather than buying significant amounts of shares. You're presumably already investing the time and effort to manage that portfolio of properties and have the experience and knowledge gained from doing it for a number of years so it is not as if it will become a major additional drag on your time (compared to, say, if you currently had no properties and bought one).

Even if property in London does go down and you suffer a capital loss (I) you can offset that loss against capital gains on other properties and (II) you will still receive an income stream which is likely to at the very least keep up with inflation. I doubt property in London will fall materially though and at worst it will possibly stagnate but even that looks fairly unlikely to me.

However I would only buy something with a decent rental yield which is pretty tricky in London so would really depend on whether I could find anything suitable.

chewmylegoff

meljm2 wrote: »

No property?

Very wise

Not really. If I had invested the cash in a local btl property in 2008 I would be sitting on a tidy capital gain and have received a much better income than the bank is paying me currently. I couldn't be bothered though as managing it was a bit daunting, in retrospect I should have done it and just got an agent to manage it - would still be up.

chucknorris

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Personally if I had 8 properties in London then If I wanted to increase my investments I would just look at getting more properties rather than buying significant amounts of shares. You're presumably already investing the time and effort to manage that portfolio of properties and have the experience and knowledge gained from doing it for a number of years so it is not as if it will become a major additional drag on your time (compared to, say, if you currently had no properties and bought one).

Even if property in London does go down and you suffer a capital loss (I) you can offset that loss against capital gains on other properties and (II) you will still receive an income stream which is likely to at the very least keep up with inflation. I doubt property in London will fall materially though and at worst it will possibly stagnate but even that looks fairly unlikely to me.

However I would only buy something with a decent rental yield which is pretty tricky in London so would really depend on whether I could find anything suitable.

You've just articulated my own counter arguement to myself. Not to mention my wife who has already decided to invest in another house and said that if I buy with her she'll manage it.

We are looking at Totenham Hale, not the most splendid of areas I agree, but with the regeneration going on we think that it has good 10-15 years prospects. Current yields are about 5.3% on 3 bed victorian houses which is what we would go for.

But I will also invest in shares I think as my savings bonds mature.