The millionaire binman

setmefree2

Graham_Devon wrote: »

It got me thinking.... could this posssibly ever happen again in our lifetimes? Or was it a one off set of factors that has probably turned completely normal, everyday joe teachers, sales assistants etc into millionaires who can retire very very comfortably? Factors which could never piece together again?

There are still areas in London that haven't been gentrified - so yes.

chucknorris

Generali wrote: »

You reckon. 50 years of work. That's only £20k on the side each year even if you're incompetent enough to manage to dodge receiving compound interest at all.

If you were frugal, spent 7 years in the millitary to build a pot then started flipping houses doing the work yourself I reckon even a blinkered fool could get there.

Two teachers retiring could easily have the equivalent of a £1m pension pot between them, even just one in a more senior position. A principal lecturer at a university would definitely have about a £1m pension pot if he had worked there most of his working life, imagine a couple, that would be a combined £2m pension pot. That's the value of these final/career average (granted a bit harder) pension schemes.

setmefree2

chewmylegoff wrote: »

I think it quite unlikely that London is full of millionaire street sweepers and bin men riding the property boom. More likely that the people sitting on property boom cash are a bit more middle class professional.

Seriously, the older people in my street are very, very, ordinary (for want of a better word).... the midlle aged and young are overachievers - a very strange mix tbh.

wotsthat

N1AK wrote: »

If the example if true then neither hard work or grabbing opportunities had anything to do with it. A street cleaner in Burnley likely works just as hard, and other than moving to/staying in London, they could have done nothing different.

How successful are you compared to your mates from school? Why the difference? Surely not just luck and randomness otherwise why not just flip a coin to make decisions.

setmefree2

SailorSam wrote: »

With all the talk about a mansion tax i've seen what you'd call the average guy who bought a run-down property in a scruffy area years ago, now sitting on a goldmine but their only income maybe a basic pension.

Yes the older people in my street seem to be like that too. The difference in standards of living is quite marked because in the end the bin man in the OP can't live like a millionaire until he sells his property - until that point he has to live like a bin man. The bin man doesn't have the income to support a high standard of living but his overachieving neighbours do.

Cyberman60

Masomnia wrote: »

Nice discount via a right to buy, council place in a central location and it's not at all inconceivable.

Absolutely. There are thousands of people like this. I know a couple who bought a 2 bed terraced in Ealing for 80K in 1988. It's now worth 700K !!!

captainhindsight_2

This can happen anywhere not just london, a lot can happen in 50 years. What once may have been an average or below average piece of land can very easily become worth millions or loose millions. Whether it is a new road, a road being closed new train station. Very few people become rich from hard work alone, circumstance and luck are a big part if not a bigger part than hard work.

I think it is a misperceptions that self made millionaires are hard working and have professional careers.

In my experience, it is lazy people who work smart in the right circumstances who become rich because they delegate and outsource rather than do giving them time to delegate and outsource more and more.

There are people who work day and night to get rich, and others who work smart it is often those who did badly at school.

It's always fun to see at old school reunions the over acheavers and 'professionals' showing off in their sharp suits and mid-exec BMWs moaning about their massive mortgages then the 'under achiever' in his scruffy jeans and tshirt tuns up in a banged up old van with more money than all of them put together.

wotsthat

Cyberman60 wrote: »

Absolutely. There are thousands of people like this. I know a couple who bought a 2 bed terraced in Ealing for 80K in 1988. It's now worth 700K !!!

Could a refuse collector really afford to buy a £80k house in 1988.

£80k was some way above the average house price in 1988.

zagubov

N1AK wrote: »

If the example if true then neither hard work or grabbing opportunities had anything to do with it. A street cleaner in Burnley likely works just as hard, and other than moving to/staying in London, they could have done nothing different.

As to GD's question: Yes it will happen again, some people will get lucky and buy something that increases vastly in value without predicting it. We might see prices increase considerably in Manchester or another city for example, but clearly I can't predict where or I'd be buying in now

N1AK wrote: »

Anecdotal I know but I know someone in their late-50s who has never done 'skilled' work who owns in a property worth most of £1 million which they were able to buy in the 80s.

I doubt it's anything close to the norm, but I expect it's not that uncommon. London property used to be relatively affordable on non-professional wages.

A psychology professor, Richard Wiseman did an interesting study on people with self-reported different levels of luck. He made them scan newspapers to find key items, but he also placed notices in them telling them they could interrupt the experiment to claim cash rewards from the experimenters.

We don't need to guess do we, which people claimed the money? It's not just being in the right place at the right time that leads to "good luck", which is arbitrary, but a massive proportion of what we call luck is just paying attention to, and being on the lookout for, positive opportunities.

It's a skill we could learn. Not everybody would seize the opportunities this binman did.

There is also the possibility as others have suggested that the "binman" is being dishonest and did a less-highly-respected job such as estate agent or banker.:D

ChopperST

Crashy_Time wrote: »

It wouldn`t be possible, the one off credit event that led to this mess, where average people had masses of cheap credit to play with, will never happen again in our lifetimes. It`s over for property, there will be money made in the future fleecing the little people with "investments" in disease control, or Super Weapons, or Moon flights, but they can`t run the same scam via property again, everybody and their dog knows it was just a Ponzi to benefit bankers now.

My god Crashy why can't you just be happy for the guy? You really are a glass half empty kind of person aren't you?

Before you say it I am not a HPI ramper, I totally agree that housing needs to become more affordable but I am not at the HPC scale of the spectrum either. We live in a capitalist state where markets function. Perhaps you are more suited to live in a communist society or some other social utopia?

And will you stop misusing the Ponzi analogy? Housing is a marketplace dictated by supply and demand. I have no doubt in the future that house prices will fall at some point. Ponzi schemes collapse when new investors do not enter at the bottom as the supply has essentially been exhausted. This would never happen with respect of residential property as people always need somewhere to live. What would happen is if / when FTB can no longer afford to buy there would be downward pressure on prices until seller and buyer agree a price. The current cycle due to various factors has been the opposite in that house prices have risen because of a abundance of buyers and a low volume of suitable property on the market.

Markets are cyclical and will continue to be so.

Please start adding something useful to threads you post in as it is boring listening to the same old tripe time and time again with very little substance to back your arguments up, except randomly selecting properties from rightmove with a massive selection bias as they suit your side of the argument as opposed to looking at the bigger picture.