Keep Calm And Carry On

During WWII the Ministry of Information printed bright red signs with this ‘chin up’ message.
Now a Tunbridge Wells estate agent has dusted one off and placed it in his front window.
Full marks, we say, to the folks at  Alexandre Boyes for their wry sense of humour … and well done, too, for a clever piece [...]

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Time To Start Buying Again?

When markets fall people get nervous, sit on the sidelines and wait for things to bottom out.
Calling the low point of a market is, however, very tricky, which is why most experts will tell you that the best possible scenario is to buy close to the bottom – better to make a small short-term loss [...]

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Windmills For Sail

It was Miguel de Cervante’s birthday yesterday (happy birthday Mig, me old mucker) and so in honour of his most famous character Don Quixote, here are a few choice windmills for sale for him to tilt at.

Sadly they’re all lacking their sails, but I’m sure the Don would still have had a pop at them [...]

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Ridiculous Generalisation Of The Week

No, it’s not a regular blog posting (yet), but to be quite honest, with the amount of dubious data out there it easily could be.
The questionable claim that has caught my eye on this occasion comes courtesy of a survey into the saving habits of first-time buyers.
Finance site Fairinvestment.co.uk surveyed around 2,500 individuals and found [...]

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Where’s The Nearest Off Licence?

Amy Winehouse is reportedly saying No, no, no to London life and upping sticks to a sedate village in the Suffolk countryside.
Tired of the temptations of the Capital, and in a bid to get her life back on track, the singer is supposedly just days away from completing on the purchase of a seven-bed period [...]

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Bless This House Sale

The witty Royals of Rent blog reveals that negotiators at Falcon and Foxglove (Burnley) have taken to burying statues of St Joseph in the gardens of properties they’re trying to sell.
St Joseph? Despite many years enduring the tender ministrations of Sisters of Mercy, Christian Brothers, Jesuits and Dominicans, this is a new one on me.

But [...]

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Join The Jet Set

I read that Gatwick Airport is up for sale, a snip at £1.8billion. It’s certainly not your average ‘property for sale’, but its particulars are impressive:

(original photos: johnsto and stormo66)

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Subterranean Home Sale Blues

“There’s a curious truth in architecture that the worse the conditions of the project, the more beautiful the solution.”
So mused Kevin McCloud about this beleaguered project in Cheltenham when Grand Designs featured it back in January.
But I think Kev may have been having a bit of an off day. The house, built in defiance of [...]

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Sales Down 80 Per Cent?

Yesterday The Negotiator (a trade mag for estate agents) inadvertently put the wind up everyone with a report headlined: “House sales plummet 80 per cent, Land Registry data reveals.”
Crikey!
It continued: “So far, only 21,749 sales have been recorded for this July in England and Wales – a fall of 79 per cent compared with July [...]

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Who’s Right About House Prices?

A great big yawning gap is opening up between house price indices based on the Land Registry’s data and those based on lenders’ mortgage approvals.
Just last week Nationwide told us that house prices had tumbled into double-digit decline with a -10.5 per cent fall since August 2007.
The next day the Land Registry revealed that prices [...]

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