£/euro

redimp98

Pension income in sterling, expenditure in euro. Living abroad (Italy) is not quite as rosy as a year ago. Any tips on managing the situation?

Also taking a hit on the UK house for sale. A year ago, market value of £140k, @1.45 euro = approx. 200k euro.
Now, house still wont sell at £120k. Would prob. go at £110k. However, @1.21 euro = approx. 132k euro

droopsnout

Sympathies. Got the same problem, though living in France.

No solutions or tips. Just belt-tightening, though we're getting to the last notch!

EdInvestor

If you are selling the property in order to raise cash to invest for income, you could achieve the same result by renting the house out for a while.This might also give time for the property market to stabilise, as the problems are mainly caused by the bank "credit crunch" which is now showing early signs of getting sorted.

If you do decide to do this, get yourself on the HMRC non resident landlords scheme so you can get your rental income paid tax free.

meester

EdInvestor wrote: »

If you are selling the property in order to raise cash to invest for income, you could achieve the same result by renting the house out for a while.This might also give time for the property market to stabilise, as the problems are mainly caused by the bank "credit crunch" which is now showing early signs of getting sorted.

I thought the problems were caused by prices tripling in 10 years while wages only rose by one half.

Silly me.

I was in Belgium recently, was told the prices of property there, just a couple of hundred pounds a month for a flat in Antwerp, and it's not like they've got any more land than we've got.

Sell the house.

Whether or not you cash in the pounds for euros is a slightly different question, but has to follow on. Europe does not have the same orgy of debt and borrowing that Gordon Brown has bestowed upon us. There are no fundamental reasons for the pound to strengthen against the euro.

Britons have been in the grossly absurd position of being able to go all over the world and essentially dictate the price of everyone's property. 'Oh look, Bulgaria, if I translate the cost of this hut into pounds it's really cheap, let's pay twice the going local rate.' There really is no sound economic justification for this.

It's likely that property will go the same way as technology shares did and become deeply unfashionable in this country.

seven-day-weekend

Same story here, living in Spain. Just had to stop eating!

Can't help with thr house sale, sorry, other than to suggest renting it out as someone else has mentioned.

EdInvestor

Are there any "Euro based" money saving sites/tips? eg on utilities and phones, cash interest rates, tax etc?