Nov
30
Overseas property owners struggle with unexpected maintenance costs
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Almost half of overseas property owners have had to pay unexpected maintenance
costs on their homes, research reveals.
Source: Overseas property owners struggle with unexpected maintenance costs
Nov
28
Terraced street on sale for £400 million
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The world’s most expensive row of terraced houses has gone on sale for a
collective, wallet-busting price tag of around £400million.
Source: Terraced street on sale for £400 million
Nov
27
Sainsburys Milford Credit Card Scam….?
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I received an email warning from a friend about this potential issue. Is it a scam? I don’t really know, but if you read the warning email you can then make up your mind. To my mind it could be an innocent oversight, but if it’s not then it’s a low-ball way of taking people for a ride!
Anyway, it’s a salutory lesson that all of us should check carefully our receipts and vouchers after using our debit and credit cards… and to regularly reconcile our bank account statements.
I bought a bunch of stuff, over £150, & I glanced at my receipt as the cashier was handing me the bags. I saw a cash-back of £40. I told her I didn’t request a cash back & to delete it. She said I’d have to take the £40 because she couldn’t delete it. I told Her to call a supervisor. Supervisor came & said I’d have to take it.. I said NO! Taking the £40 would be a cash advance against my Credit card & I wasn’t paying interest on a cash advance!!!!! If they couldn’t delete it then they would have to delete the whole order. So the supervisor had the cashier delete the whole order & re-scan everything! The second time I looked at the electronic pad before I signed & a cash-back of £20 popped up. At that point I told the cashier & she deleted it. The total came out right. The cashier agreed that the Electronic Pad must be defective.
Obviously the cashier knew the electronic pad was defective because she NEVER offered me the £40 at the beginning. Can you imagine how many people went through before me & at the end of her shift how much money she pocketed?
Just to alert everyone. My co worker went to Milford , Sainsburys last week. She had her items rung up by the cashier. The cashier hurried her along and didn’t give her a receipt. She asked the cashier for a receipt and the cashier was annoyed and gave it to her. My co worker didn’t look at her receipt until later that night. The receipt showed that she asked for £20 cash back. SHE DID NOT ASK FOR CASH BACK!
My co-worker called Sainsburys who investigated but could not see the cashier pocket the money. She then called her niece who works for the bank and her niece told her this. This is a new scam going on. The cashier will key in that you asked for cash back and then hand it to her friend who is the next person in the queue.
Please, please, please check your receipts right away when using credit or debit cards!
This is NOT limited to Sainsburys; they are one of the largest retailers so they have the most incidents.
I am adding to this. My husband and I were in Sainsburys and paying with credit card when my husband went to sign the credit card signer he just happen to notice there was a £20 cash back added. He told the cashier that he did not ask nor want cash back and she said this machine has been messing up and she canceled it. We really didn’t think anything of it until we read this email.
I wonder how many “seniors” have been, or will be, “stung” by this one????
To make matters worse …THIS SCAM CAN BE DONE ANYWHERE, AT ANY RETAIL OR WHOLESALE LOCATION!!!
BEFORE LEAVING THE CHECK-OUT……..CHECK YOUR RECEIPT!!!!!
THIS COULD HAPPEN ANYWHERE. CHECK YOUR RECEIPT BEFORE LEAVING THE STAND. I’VE SEEN PEOPLE DO JUST THAT. NOW I’LL START!
Nov
26
Buy Property and Pay Off the Mortgages
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Recently I received a message from someone I know via Facebook, a fellow property investor, sourcer and financier. He gave us his opinion via a well written piece, some of which I agreed with, some I didn’t. Below is my response to him which you will enjoy reading and probably learn something useful.
Everyone talks about contrarian investing… “buy property now while the market is in a downturn” yada yada yada. Nobody says “pay off the mortgages”. It’s always seemed to me that people just buy and buy and create more debt, never paying back that debt for “tax reasons”. Uhm… check out Lord Sugar’s debt on his multi-million property portfolio. I don’t see any banks chasing HIM for repayment of their loans!
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Hi Mark,
Nicely written piece, well done, but you have to admit there’s a certain self satisfaction in knowing that once all the mortgages are paid off that you have oodles of cash flowing in to your bank account and the banks are no longer at the beck and call of the banks, at the mercy of the economic conditions prevailing at any point in time etc.
If the property falls empty, so what. As long as you’ve got money to cover the property taxes and utility running costs, and this can be as low as £2,000 for the YEAR, then you’re not going to end up bankrupt servicing an empty property with a huge mortgage on it.
What investors on the outside don’t is that investors on the inside are in fact doing is leveraging up in the downturn, buying loads of property that cashflow now in order to “park” the property, then they intend to SELL half their portfolio, pay the taxes and use the profits to PAY OFF their remaining mortgages.
Why does nobody say this anymore? The likes of Andy Shaw would shout “buy property and wait” and “never sell property”, but look at him now. His business model, as with so many business models I see, are fundametally flawed. They only work in upwards markets and rely on increasing values in order to remortgage, increase the debt on the property and then use the cash to live, but on the premise that this cash is debt and therefore not taxable. WRONG! If the money raised from the refinance is not used for the purpose of investing in more property or for repairing and renewing existing stock, then the interest element on that portion of debt is NOT tax deductible!
My goal is to have all my properties totally debt free within the next 10 years, if not sooner. That way the banks and everybody else can do what they like, my income will be bomb-proof from the vagaries of the economy because with all that lovely cash sitting in my bank account, I will be able to weather most storms!
My advice?
Leverage up, buy as many properties as you can handle yourself or handle the agents to handle, and then pay off the mortgages on them as soon as possible. Then live a less stress life knowing it will take a major calamity or personal screw up for you to lose the lot.
Nov
21
Plans to sell the beloved home of former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath have
met with resistance from those who say it is a valuable part of the nation’s
heritage.
Source: Anger over plan to sell Sir Edward Heath’s historic home