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Articles from Daniel Kirby | Selfgrowth.com
- End of the Crunch Show - by Submitted on May 06, 2008 from Daniel KirbyUp until today it had not seemed to be a good week for news emanating from the Bank of England. Firstly, we had the news that in March the number of mortgages approved had dropped from 72,000 in February to just 64,000. Then yesterday brought governor Mervyn King's declaration before members ...
Views: 695 - Boom Amid The Billion - by Submitted on Mar 06, 2008 from Daniel KirbyAs the second largest country by population in the world, India was always likely to make an enormous impact if it ever began to punch its weight economically. Now this appears to be happening, with rapid industrial and technological advancement, economic liberalisation and an influx of foreign ...
Views: 733 - Housing Rises On Rate-cutters' Radar - by Submitted on Feb 25, 2008 from Daniel KirbyEarlier this week many were surprised to hear Bank of England monetary policy committee (MPC) member Tim Besley indicate an apparent shift in his position on interest rate cuts. Known to be a rate-cut opposing hawk, he seemed to soften his stance by telling the Institute for Fiscal Studies that ...
Views: 701 - Broker Expectations Rise - by Submitted on Feb 21, 2008 from Daniel KirbyIn a period when the property market has seen falling prices, restricted credit and one of the biggest mortgage lenders in the land having first to go begging to the Bank of England to stay afloat and now be nationalised, some might expect that buy-to-let investors should concentrate purely on ...
Views: 842 - Recovery - But How Soon? - by Submitted on Feb 21, 2008 from Daniel KirbyThe last week has, as usual, seen some mixed news about the property market. In between predictions of further falls in house prices have been forecasts of recovery. Mixed news from the Bank of England in its quarterly inflation report may only have added to the uncertainty some could be ...
Views: 732 - Interest In Portugal Growing - by Submitted on Feb 15, 2008 from Daniel KirbyAs the Spanish market has taken a few hits in recent times, many investors have been looking around for alternatives. While some have found new places to go to in Spain and some have ventured into the unknown territory of emerging markets, others have found the country next door to be of great ...
Views: 843 - Swiss Ski Property On A Roll - by Submitted on Feb 15, 2008 from Daniel KirbyWhile the lightening afternoon skies may make many investors think ahead towards summer and dream of places with sun kissed-beaches, many have not forgotten that it is still, despite the floral evidence to the contrary in Britain, winter. Up on high Alpine slopes, of course, the situation is a ...
Views: 935 - City Living Prospects 'Still Strong' - by Submitted on Feb 15, 2008 from Daniel KirbyOf all the claims made about the state of the property investment market, one of the most common is that the city living trend in regional cities is grinding to a halt. While more and more apartments have been built in cities such as Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Leeds, these have now ...
Views: 727 - Cape Verde's Commercial Promise - by Submitted on Feb 13, 2008 from Daniel KirbyMuch has been made of the growth in the property market in the Cape Verde islands. With prices growing, new developments rising up, tourist numbers increasing and infrastructure improvements to support this including a number of new airports served by new air routes, the place appears to be ...
Views: 1240 - Be Selective, Investors In Germany Advised - by Submitted on Feb 12, 2008 from Daniel KirbyWhen it comes to property investment, Germany appears to represent a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand, it is a well-known fact that the country does not have the sort of property-owning culture that the UK does. Less than half of Germans own their own homes, which means that the rental market ...
Views: 656 - Bouncebackability Test Comes Now - by Submitted on Feb 12, 2008 from Daniel KirbyThose looking at the possibilities of investing in property in UK will be concerned with many issues. One will be the economy as a whole, with some doom-mongers still predicting that Britain will catch America's cold and plunge into recession. Others may take a more subtle view, that a major ...
Views: 689 - Thinking High And Long - by Submitted on Feb 11, 2008 from Daniel KirbyThose looking at overseas property investments in areas such as the Swiss Alps property may have a somewhat more complex choice to make than in days of yore. Where once it was a matter of finding attractive chalets in a snowy location for the winter, much has changed. For one thing, the spectre ...
Views: 751(1 vote) - How Long-Term Investment Pays - by Submitted on Jan 25, 2008 from Daniel KirbyIn the current climate with its talk of crunching credit, plummeting prices and declining dividends, many have seen the buy-to-let market as a near-certain victim of the emerging economic circumstances. Not so, it seems, judging by recent surveys in the industry, which have found the majority ...
Views: 706 - Property Experts Say: It's Not Grim Up North - by Submitted on Jan 15, 2008 from Daniel KirbyThe decision of the Bank of England to keep interest rates on hold yesterday may tempted some to predict more hard times ahead for the property industry. Notwithstanding the widespread expectation that rates will fall next month, there are many who would beg to differ. Buy-to-let is certainly ...
Views: 745 - A Pinch Of Salt For The Foretellers Of Gloom - by Submitted on Jan 05, 2008 from Daniel KirbyThe extent to which recent predictions for the fortunes of the UK property market in 2008 have cast a shadow of gloom may seem disheartening for many, be they aspiring buyers, new investors in buy-to-let or those considering an expansion of their portfolio. Yet time and again there are both ...
Views: 876 - Moderate Recovery Prospect Leaves Buy-to-let Well Placed - by Submitted on Jan 02, 2008 from Daniel KirbyOne of the most frequently highlighted statistics in the UK property investment sector has been the rise in rents as the housing market has declined. With more and more would-be first-time buyers opting to stay out of the market in these uncertain times, rental demand has been higher and has ...
Views: 628 - Christmas Cheer Or Bah Humbug? - by Submitted on Dec 31, 2007 from Daniel KirbyEarlier this week, the Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) said that over 3.5 million Britons will be jetting off to the sun over the Christmas and New Year period. Among this small army of those leaving behind the cold and wet of the British winter to spend the festive season in the ...
Views: 814 - Relentless Rent Rise Roars On - by Submitted on Dec 29, 2007 from Daniel KirbyWith the end of the year drawing close, analysts will be able to look back on a 2007 of two distinct phrases. Up to July, the housing market continued to boom, talk of a housing market slowdown appeared as risible as it had turned out to be in 2006 and first-time buyers sought mortgages of ...
Views: 739 - Next Year's Cape Christmas Cracker? - by Submitted on Dec 29, 2007 from Daniel KirbyEarlier this week, the Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) said that over 3.5 million Britons will be jetting off to the sun over the Christmas and New Year period. Among this small army of those leaving behind the cold and wet of the British winter to spend the festive season in the ...
Views: 779 - Time For The Speculation To End - by Submitted on Dec 28, 2007 from Daniel KirbyThe old saying "speculate to accumulate" may ring true - but in more than one way when it comes to the buy-to-let market. Accumulating failure appears to be the way for some in the buy-to-let market as the nature of the industry and the state of the housing scene tilts the advantages all towards ...
Views: 778 - Aiming Low To Earn High - by Submitted on Dec 28, 2007 from Daniel KirbyInvestors in overseas property may have felt somewhat negative about the prospects for Alpine ski resorts after last winter. The unusually mild season left many resorts despairing as slopes that would normally be filled with skiers were brown, muddy wastelands with barely a flake of snow. The ...
Views: 761 - Why Investors In France Are Not Beached - by Submitted on Dec 27, 2007 from Daniel KirbyThose looking at property investment in France have the luxury of a variety of different possible markets to serve. There are those who fancy commuting from Paris or other parts of the north to London via the Channel Tunnel. There are those who fancy a place among the famous vineyards. ...
Views: 787 - Where The Healthy Prospects Lie - by Submitted on Dec 27, 2007 from Daniel KirbyThose looking for good or bad news about the buy-to-let market should not have to hunt too far to find it in these times of change. But both will not be found in the same place, for different movements in the market, both geographically and in the type of property, have led to variable ...
Views: 662 - Golden Chances For Green Investors - by Submitted on Dec 26, 2007 from Daniel KirbyIn an increasingly eco-friendly marketplace, everything, it seems, has to be environmentally friendly. Organic food is in, irradiated and GM is out. Recycling is good while waste is unforgivable. Everything from using more public transport to fitting insulation and using energy-saving light ...
Views: 676 - Affordability Cloud Is Landords' Silver Lining - by Submitted on Dec 20, 2007 from Daniel KirbyIts official - affordability in Britain is bad. Close observers of the UK housing market will, of course, know this isn't exactly a startling revelation. It is, after all, one of the prime factors to which the high house price inflation of recent years has been attributed. What is happening, ...
Views: 697 - Cyprus Tipped For Euro Boom - by Submitted on Dec 19, 2007 from Daniel KirbyHistory was made this week in Cyprus when the central bank met to set interest rates. Not because it was for the first time, but because it was for the last. For the record, governor Athanasios Orphanides said the three rates set, the key refinancing rate, the Lombard rate and the overnight ...
Views: 831 - Squaring The Circle On House-buying And Rents - by Submitted on Dec 19, 2007 from Daniel KirbyThose who seek to analyse the fortunes of the UK property market from the point of view of buy-to-let lenders may possibly wonder how a downturn in the residential market can coincide with an increase in rents. After all, the boom in buy-to-let in recent years has occurred at exactly the same ...
Views: 708 - Sensible Investors Will Succeed, Says Expert - by Submitted on Dec 18, 2007 from Daniel KirbyThose considering investing in the buy-to-let sector, or expanding their existing portfolios, may be forgiven for feeling slightly confused at much of what they have read of late about the industry. On the one hand, there have been negative stories of investors getting their fingers burnt and ...
Views: 637 - Hips View That Swings The Other Way - by Submitted on Dec 17, 2007 from Daniel KirbyToday, just for the benefit of anyone who had been away on a canoeing trip and had lost their memory, the Department for Communities and Local Government issued a reminder that there are just three days to go until the final roll-out of the controversial home information pack (Hips) scheme is ...
Views: 840 - Investors Have Fast Train To Paris - by Submitted on Dec 14, 2007 from Daniel KirbyWhen George Orwell wrote Down and Out in London and Paris, he was writing about life as a homeless person in the two capitals, perhaps never imagining that one day people would be not just anything but homeless in either city, but able to commute between them with impunity. Yet while the ...
Views: 830 - Property Market Recovery May Start Here - by Submitted on Dec 11, 2007 from Daniel KirbyFollowing the credit crunch and the interest rate increases over the last 16 months, the housing market has seen a significant slowdown. With Halifax revealing a 1.1 per cent house price fall for November on the back of smaller falls in September and October, the situation looked less than ...
Views: 741 - For Lifestyle Or Money? - by Submitted on Dec 10, 2007 from Daniel KirbyThere area many reasons why people buy property abroad. Some are after a buy-to-let rental income in the long-term. Some want to buy and then sell at a profit in a growing market. Some look for a place to call their second home and those emigrating one to call their first. When it comes to ...
Views: 776 - London 'To Weather Property Storm' - by Submitted on Dec 07, 2007 from Daniel KirbyFor the last few years London has been one of the areas pushing UK property inflation the most. Whatever the average price rise, London's has been higher, with prime central London areas seeing the biggest booms. Recent figures, however, have suggested this capital trend has reversed. The ...
Views: 712 - Sherry Good Prospects In Spain - by Submitted on Dec 07, 2007 from Daniel KirbyThe buy-to-let market, whether in the UK or overseas, is in many respects a series of markets, for the kind of property investors choose to sink their capital into will depend on the potential customer base. Thus property which is not necessarily of tip-top quality but is close to a university ...
Views: 888 - The best prospects in Scotland - by Submitted on Dec 06, 2007 from Daniel KirbyIn its recent prediction that suggested the UK as a whole would experience zero house price growth, Nationwide said that Scotland property would fare better than the rest of the UK, with four per cent growth in 2008, a slowdown but certainly not a juddering halt. The explanation for this ...
Views: 909 - Tax the way to do it - by Submitted on Dec 05, 2007 from Daniel KirbyInheritance Tax (IHT) has been a big issue in Britain recently, with newspaper campaigns for its abolition, a pledge to raise the threshold to £1 million by the Conservatives and an immediate doubling of the threshold for couples to £600,000 in response by the Labour government in the ...
Views: 727 - Does Short-term Dip Mean Long Term Cuts? - by Submitted on Dec 04, 2007 from Daniel KirbyThe UK housing market is in a curious state in many ways. After years of high inflation driven by a strong economy and a shortfall in demand, the market has seen a slowdown since the base rate hit 5.75 per cent and the credit crunch introduced a wave of economic uncertainty. Evidence of the ...
Views: 959 - The Lifestyle's The Thing - by Submitted on Nov 29, 2007 from Daniel KirbyEvery buy-to-let investor looking for property overseas has to work out first what market they are aiming to serve. Some will look for property geared up to short family holidays, others to houses that will function well as residences for longer parts of the year. Nearby facilities will play a ...
Views: 675 - Rate Cut Answer Blowing In The Wind, Says Lomax - by Submitted on Nov 28, 2007 from Daniel KirbyThe issue of interest rate cuts has been high on the agenda this month as the Bank of England's own inflation report hinted strongly at UK mortgage cuts next year. However, the minutes of the latest meeting of the monetary policy committee (MPC) showed that the people making the decisions were ...
Views: 668 - Calcutt Promises Brownfield Revolution - by Submitted on Nov 26, 2007 from Daniel KirbyThe future of the housing market has been the subject of so much conjecture and debate that the list of considerations is notably long. No less than 37 issues have been identified in the Calcutt report released today, if the number of recommendations is any guide. John Calcutt, formerly chief ...
Views: 671 - Base Rate Uncertainty May Drag On - by Submitted on Nov 24, 2007 from Daniel KirbyThe time between the announcement of the monthly decision by the Bank of England's rate-setting monetary policy committee (MPC) and the publication of the minutes is frequently filled with speculation about how the committee might have voted. Partly this may be due to the fact that nature abhors ...
Views: 750 - Watch For Oversaturation, Warns BSA - by Submitted on Nov 23, 2007 from Daniel KirbyWith the future of the UK property market, both residential and buy-to-let, subject to so much uncertainty and speculation, many will wonder if any clear idea can be formed about where the best investments, if there are any, are to be found. Neil Johnson, PR policy manager at the Building ...
Views: 724 - Caribbean Appeal Brings Cape Verde Closer - by Submitted on Nov 23, 2007 from Daniel KirbyThat Cape Verde is emerging as one of the most exciting new markets for property investors is not in doubt. Stories of the increase in the number of people buying Cape Verde property in the islands and the growth of tourism are well-documented trends. But the specific marketing of the islands as ...
Views: 752 - Cyprus Stable As Euro Day Looms - by Submitted on Nov 22, 2007 from Daniel KirbyInvestors in Cyprus property looking to secure a piece of real estate in Cyprus, whether as a retirement home or as a buy-to-let property to serve the army of tourists who descend on the sun-blessed Mediterranean island every year, will have been keeping an eye on the economy. The news is good ...
Views: 706 - Top Of The Scots - by Submitted on Nov 21, 2007 from Daniel KirbyIt's now widely accepted that the UK housing market has all but ground to a halt. Some believe this is temporary, pessimists believe it will be the beginning of a downward spiral, while others suggest Britain is simply due a fallow period to let things settle down and get back into kilter ...
Views: 798 - Everything In Its Season With Spanish Property - by Submitted on Nov 21, 2007 from Daniel KirbyGiven the kind of headlines which have emerged with the slowdown in the Spanish property market, one might sense the palpitations experienced by news that property sales in the country are going down by 45 to 50 per cent this winter. The reality, however, is very different, according to Les ...
Views: 763 - No Train Strain For Spain? - by Submitted on Nov 20, 2007 from Daniel KirbyYesterday, amid great ceremony and under a spanking new roof which had replaced its dingy predecessor, the revamped St Pancras, recently re-opened by the Queen, began its role as the new London hub for the Eurostar and waved off the first of the new high-speed generation of trains as it hurtled ...
Views: 783 - A Rate Cut Merely Delayed? - by Submitted on Nov 19, 2007 from Daniel KirbyWhile the property market has produced a series of clear signals about its fortunes in recent months, from the slowdown in the residential housing sector to the rise in rents, the wider economy has thrown a number of contradictory signals into the melting pot of uncertainty. Thus the credit ...
Views: 684 - Cape Verde: The New Carribbean - Or Even Better? - by Submitted on Nov 16, 2007 from Daniel KirbyInvesting in France Property has always been a popular way for Britons to secure a piece of foreign property, with the country second only to Spain, but the country is perhaps an even better location into which investors should sink their hard-earned than its Iberian neighbour across the ...
Views: 791 - Why Down South Is Still Up Top In France - by Submitted on Nov 16, 2007 from Daniel KirbyInvesting in France Property has always been a popular way for Britons to secure a piece of foreign property, with the country second only to Spain, but the country is perhaps an even better location into which investors should sink their hard-earned than its Iberian neighbour across the ...
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