The millionaire binman

wotsthat

the_flying_pig wrote: »

you could argue that his being specifically in group B3 rather than B2 or B1 represents judgement rather than luck but being in B per se, nah, pure 100% lottery.

That's exactly what I'm arguing. This chaps outcome is a result of decision making as well as luck. Same with all of us. Some make a bomb and are arrogant enough to think there's no luck involved. Others will go through life making a series of poor choices and blame luck when it, predictably, goes tits up.

Maybe Graham can make contact and find out for us but I doubt he ever owned just one house and watch it rise in value. Just because he was a binman doesn't mean he wasn't a part time property developer. As a hobby from the late nineties it was difficult to lose money.

If he was just a simple bin man on, say, £15k in the same house he'd been in for 30 years just his council tax would be over £2k of his take home pay.

Generali

Crashy_Time wrote: »

My position is that I don`t believe there is a physical shortage of property, and that price is a function of supply and demand for credit. There are other factors, sentiment being a main one, but this is my main position. I find posters who write lengthy posts often want to appear like they are in some way knowledgeable, when in fact they just swallowed the "must get on the ladder" meme from family/media, and due to borrowing large amounts to facilitate this feel obliged to desperately defend their decisions at every opportunity.

So what's keeping London prices up? Credit seems to be immaterial there.

Graham_Devon

wotsthat wrote: »

If he was just a simple bin man on, say, £15k in the same house he'd been in for 30 years just his council tax would be over £2k of his take home pay.

It's around £1,400 for a "Band C" house down here. And people are paying mortgage / rent on top of paying that council tax payment. Loads of people do this on low pay and / or get help.

So I don't see the council tax as an issue really. He could quite easily have taken say 50k equity out of the house and still had hundreds and thousands left in the house.

Crashy_Time

Generali wrote: »

So what's keeping London prices up? Credit seems to be immaterial there.

Not much it seems...


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11149882/Has-the-London-house-price-bubble-burst.html

MFW_ASAP

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I don't know if the story is true, I don't know his background.

.......

My point being that he has afforded a lifestyle that his salary could never have bought

LOL, brilliant. You don't know if any of it is true, but you do know that he's got this amazing lifestyle.

Haha, you couldnt make it up. I love this board, it's just so absurd sometimes.:rotfl:

PasturesNew

Thrugelmir wrote: »

A millionaire quid doesn't go that far. Even if the guy invested every £. At say an average 4% interest rate. That's only £40k a year. Many families have a higher household income that that.

You must live in an alternate universe to one I live in.

£40k is about double any salary I could make ... and all for doing nowt.

Given £1million in the bank I'd spend about £300k on a house, then chuck the remaining £700k into the bank, drawing, say, 2% after tax per annum ... yielding £1200/month.

Now, that's a lot of money .... sitting in a free house with £1200 or more floating in through the door every month. But - I've still got to spend the £700k.

I could live the life of Riley on that!

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

It's around £1,400 for a "Band C" house down here. And people are paying mortgage / rent on top of paying that council tax payment. Loads of people do this on low pay and / or get help.

So I don't see the council tax as an issue really. He could quite easily have taken say 50k equity out of the house and still had hundreds and thousands left in the house.

£2k per year is a lot of money when you earn £15k however you look at it and now he's got a £50k mortgage to pay each month too.

Doable of course but an unlikely scenario for someone with £1m equity.

Maybe you could get further details.

PasturesNew

wotsthat wrote: »

If he was just a simple bin man on, say, £15k in the same house he'd been in for 30 years just his council tax would be over £2k of his take home pay.

This "simple bin man" is raking in £1700/month in London. So that's a lot higher than your guessed £15k. It's more like £22k/year

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3m3tTkxZY8BvZJSCgZR96DM/contrasting-lives-bin-men

caronoel

PasturesNew wrote: »

This "simple bin man" is raking in £1700/month in London. So that's a lot higher than your guessed £15k. It's more like £22k/year

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3m3tTkxZY8BvZJSCgZR96DM/contrasting-lives-bin-men

Great post, but why spoil Graham's jealousy with the truth?

N1AK

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.

It's a very flawed comparison. The point is regularly made that a million isn't what it used to be. For someone to reach a million in assets (in real terms, so that it means something) on street cleaning wages would still be unusual. That said it's hardly impossible, though frankly I'd question whether it was wise for people on low incomes to deprive themselves enough to reach a meaningless target like that.