Biggest Investing Mistakes

darkidoe

Ifts wrote: »

Sorry I didn't make myself clear, it should have started with a 'Not'.

I wish I had started to put more of my investments in a S&S ISA a lot earlier.

Ahh That makes a lot more sense! I am trying to not make the mistake.

Dird

Assuming it's to do with stocks, investing...my portfolio became visible Today and it's down 0.373% already!

Otherwise deciding not to buy my grandads council house (£40k) after coming into difficulty finding the other £20k as I couldn't take a mortgage out on it in my name & was harder than I thought to get a £20k unsecured loan

bobobski

Dird wrote: »

Otherwise deciding not to buy my grandads council house (£40k) after coming into difficulty finding the other £20k as I couldn't take a mortgage out on it in my name & was harder than I thought to get a £20k unsecured loan

That sounds unfortunate, but probably not a "mistake"? Not overstretching yourself has got to be on page 1 of the rule book for investing, even if that sometimes means missing out on an opportunity (which is all too easy to look at as a loss). Sounds like you did the right thing to me.

Dird

bobobski wrote: »

That sounds unfortunate, but probably not a "mistake"? Not overstretching yourself has got to be on page 1 of the rule book for investing, even if that sometimes means missing out on an opportunity (which is all too easy to look at as a loss). Sounds like you did the right thing to me.

It wasn't overstretching (I was working) I just didn't try hard enough to find someone to loan to me. Had I known about MSE/MSM then I could have found a 3.5% loan online for 3 years (or whatever the rates were a couple years ago) and would have been mortgage free soon and sitting on £60-80k profit waiting for the 5 year minimum wait to expire in order to sell on. Instead I had a really awkward face-to-face chat ("It's for a house but I can't be down on the mortgage") at Lloyds then gave up on the idea a couple days later

Edit: That's my assumption anyways. I don't know if the council try & charge full price when a house passes via a will within the 5 year timeframe

ViolaLass

You wanted someone to lend you money but you would't be on the mortgage?

gadgetmind

Dird wrote: »

"It's for a house but I can't be down on the mortgage"

So, you're either borrowing against other assets, or you're asking for an unsecured loan. The former is fairly easy, the latter requires squeaky clean credit rating, easily proven ability to repay, and will still cost you double figures of interest.

There's nothing awkward about this discussion and it's one I've had a few times and I've been lent what I required.