Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

silvercar

I'd still be wary. The Government seems to want to kill BTL and I'd be wary to fight it, especially at current yields. How do the numbers stack up with base rates at 5% and BTL mortgages at 6.5-7%, even with 5 years of rent inflation?

I look at it as the government wants a bite of the cake and BTL is an easy target. The government is going to have a big problem if the number of rentals reduces dramatically.

I would rather see the government go after investors who buy property and then leave it empty.

michaels

Generali wrote: »

I'd still be wary. The Government seems to want to kill BTL and I'd be wary to fight it, especially at current yields. How do the numbers stack up with base rates at 5% and BTL mortgages at 6.5-7%, even with 5 years of rent inflation?

I'll have to commute weekly to Sydney. It's about a 3 hour drive from Canberra to Sydney so I'd drive down on Sunday evening or Monday morning and drive back up on Wednesday and then work from home. That would work just fine.

The boss seems quite annoyed with me for taking a holiday (imagine!) so perhaps I'll be looking for something up there at some point. It'd be a shame because I enjoy what I do but I don't want to work where I'm not appreciated.

There wouldn't be huge amounts of work for me in Canberra but I only need one job and my skill set is unusual and in increasing demand.

put a word in 4 me at the current place if you decide to move on.

Re the btl, it is so hard to crystal ball beyond 5 years.

Nikkster

Generali wrote: »

There wouldn't be huge amounts of work for me in Canberra but I only need one job and my skill set is unusual and in increasing demand.

"but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career" :rotfl:

You are Liam Neeson and I claim my 5 pounds. If I'd not already decided what I'm watching tonight, I might watch Taken. Awesome film... so bad but so good.

Instead, tonight I'm going to watch Purple Rain. Which even has a song about me! Well, it has my name in the title and there aren't many songs you can say that about.
Was lucky enough to see Prince when he had his residency at the O2 almost 10 years ago. Absolutely amazing.

zagubov

Generali wrote: »

I just watched Gravity on Netflix with Mrs Generali.

Spoiler Alert! For a while it looked like the bad guys were going to win but the hero won through in the end.

DW's seen it so I need to catch it another time. Always looking for good stuff to watch on Netflix. "Better Call Saul" just finished, very much enjoyed it. We caught up with the second series of Fargo much later than everyone else. Need to catch up with "the Americans". "deutschland83" was great, downloadable as a boxset here.

Was Breaking Bad a hit in Aus? Do they watch more US or UK shows?

Spirit_2

Happy Passover for those celebrating.


We went to the Watermill nr Newbury tonight to see One million tiny plays about Britain.

it was excellent, really drew the audience in.

We had had pre-performance supper rather than post. When we came out it was still light, and into a garden bordering a chalk stream.

One of those evenings and settings where England looks and feels like the best place in the world.

cells

GDB2222 wrote: »

How can they possibly make a toaster for £5? The world's gone bonkers.

there isn't a lot of evil about it

most manufacturing is so automated that the amount of human labor involved is so small you are really just paying for the materials and R&D and for something like a toaster the R&D has long been paid up.

A cheap toaster or kettle is just 1kg of plastic/metal.

Think about the cheaper cars. They are about 1,000kg of plastic/metal and cost about 1000x the kettle. So scaled up its not all that different

People are out of work in this country,

about 95% are in work

whilst people in other countries work for almost nothing,

China is at about $15,000 ppp per capita
Other big manufacturers like Germany/USA are even higher

The people that work/earn almost nothing like much of africa or india or pakistan etc dont really have much of a manufacturing sector.

making trash that we use for a while then discard.

the modern world gives you the option to buy expensive and have it last longer if you want. choice is better than no choice.

Also its often a misconception that new stuff lasts not as long. I bought an electric motor recently which is guaranteed for >630 billion revolutions which for most applications would be fine for a while lifetime. That wasnt possible even 10 years ago no matter how much money you wanted to spend

Of course a lot of things dont need to last a lifetime because people get bored of them or there are improved specs so making a kettle last 200 years to pass down 5 generations is silly

zagubov

cells wrote: »

Of course a lot of things dont need to last a lifetime because people get bored of them or there are improved specs so making a kettle last 200 years to pass down 5 generations is silly

Welcome to the NP thread cells! (this is probably your millionth post here but I'm not that observant!);)

I'd take issue with the toaster. Some gadgets are difficult to improve and might as well be made to last.

It's like knives and forks. I doubt that next century we'll see a new version of them that'll make our eyes pop out in astonishment like we're in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

I'm the thread luddite by the way; I reckon home computers started meeting all our demands on them about 10 years ago and all later changes are cash-generating wastes of time and energy.

cells

michaels wrote: »

looked at a potential btl today. stamp duty is nearly first two years rent!

I had one fail the 1 April deadline by 1 day (simultaneous exchange and completion) after which I instructed the solicitor to send the cash back to the bank pending a decision

It then took me 3 weeks of indecision paralysis to make up my mind but I went ahead.

I hope its the right call. I finally convinced myself to go ahead when I did a NPV calculation showing that even with zero HPI and just 2.5% RPI the NPV of the property purchase was higher than paying down debt by year 23. This is all with the new rules

With 1% nominal HPI the property wins by year 12.
With 2% by year 7.
With 3% by year 5

cells

zagubov wrote: »

Welcome to the NP thread cells! (this is probably your millionth post here but I'm not that observant!);)

I'd take issue with the toaster. Some gadgets are difficult to improve and might as well be made to last.

It's like knives and forks. I doubt that next century we'll see a new version of them that'll make our eyes pop out in astonishment like we're in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

I'm the thread luddite by the way; I reckon home computers started meeting all our demands on them about 10 years ago and all later changes are cash-generating wastes of time and energy.

It is not so much about a toaster getting better at toasting but that a 3rd generation hand me down 70 year old toaster might not match the new kitchen

Generali

zagubov wrote: »

DW's seen it so I need to catch it another time. Always looking for good stuff to watch on Netflix. "Better Call Saul" just finished, very much enjoyed it. We caught up with the second series of Fargo much later than everyone else. Need to catch up with "the Americans". "deutschland83" was great, downloadable as a boxset here.

Was Breaking Bad a hit in Aus? Do they watch more US or UK shows?

We get plenty of British TV here: Dr Who, Top Gear, Jamie Oliver, Downton Abbey, Grand Designs plus a load of American blockbusters: Breaking Bad, How I Met Your Mother, Modern Families. Aussie TV is mostly terrible, either shoddy remakes of foreign shows or very bad reality TV.

There are a few good shows. QandA is okay (our Question Time) and there is an excellent program about marketing and advertising presented by two old marketing and advertising pros which gives some brilliant insights into a world I know little about. There is an Aussie Top Gear which it is very hard to describe how bad it is. One of the big current affairs shows has what appear to be paid for segments that they are at best opaque about (60 Minutes) and seems to have paid a large bribe to the Lebanese in order to have a presenter and crew released from prison to try to kidnap a child!

Better Homes and Gardens is quite fun, it's a program which is basically the lifestyle pages from the newspapers: cooking, DIY and gardening. Oh and Gardening Australia is great because Costa. Costa has got the greatest beard I have ever seen.