As we all know, banks and mortgage lenders recently lost quite a bit of money. There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors being used at the moment to suggest they are posting healthy profits but it’s only because they are robbing Peter to pay Paul. For many years mortgage intermediaries and brokers have been helping consumers find the best deals on the market. Naturally there have been those who exploit the system but any self respecting adviser should always have the clients best interests at heart. Trawling through the thousands of mortgage offers available, often having access to exclusive products
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Monthly Archives July 2009
Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs with a sense of humour
This is (apparently) a real reply from the Inland Revenue. Whether it is or not, it’s still entertaining and if everyone was like this at HMRC you could sit and chat for hours! Dear Mr x, I am writing to you to express our thanks for your more than prompt reply to our latest communication, and also to answer some of the points you raise. I will address them, as ever, in order. Firstly, I must take issue with your description of our last as a “begging letter”. It might perhaps more properly be referred to as a “tax demand”.
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Man Charged More Than Worlds GDP for Cigarettes
A man from Manchester (New Hampshire) has been charged more than the worlds combined GDP for a packet of cigarettes. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090716/tod-man-charged-23-quadrillion-for-pack-870a197.html It got me thinking, why don’t we all put our combined available credit card balances into one big fund, get the debt insured by AIG and use it to bail out the worlds faltering economies?
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Nationwides 125% Mortgage
What Nationwide’s 125% home loan means for the property market http://www.moneyweek.com/investments/property/what-nationwides-125-percent-home-loan-means-for-the-property-market-14951.aspx
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Are House Prices Really Bottoming Out?
With recent sentiment suggesting house prices will continue to fall quite substantially and conflicting data from major building societies it’s difficult to be certain where house prices will go over the next few years. I am however fairly sure there will be further decline but the extent of which is in doubt. When comparing the current housing crash to the past and taking into account affordability levels the extrapolation suggests they could fall by as much as 30% – 50% before they really hit the bottom but mortgage lenders seem to be sticking their necks out with offers that suggest they are
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Win a Book of 1000 CEOs worth £25
I’ve been given a copy of a new book entitled 1000 CEOs from DK Publishing (Dorling Kindersley) I have also been allocated 5 copies to give away! (image links to DK.com page about the book) The book features reviews of 1000 CEOs (as you might expect!) detailing their success, a snippet of how they achieved great fame, fortune and wealth plus insightful and inspirational quotes. Among the reviews are some of the worlds best known entrepreneurs, ‘start up titans’ , strategists & visionaries including Stelios Haji-Ioanou, Richard Branson, Giorgio Armani, Warren Buffet, David Packard, Charles E Merril, Bill Gates and 993
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Fed Up With Automated Sales Calls
Something that is becoming increasingly more frequent and I’m sure annoys the hell out of plenty of people, including me are ‘automated’ cold calls. Recorded messages offering to write off all my debt are the most frequent but to be honest I don’t listen to more than a couple of words before putting the phone down so I couldn’t say what all of them are trying to sell me. I’m one of the lucky ones who works from home with a telephone on my desk and although annoying and a waste of time I’m not elderly, disabled or unwell, so it’s
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