text:
housing personal finance: BTL house
by ermine
54 comments
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Fear and loathing in Britain's favourite asset class
On a small island with a lot of people, there is one type of asset that has become a national religion for Britons, and that is residential housing. You can't lose with bricks and mortar, is written through the national psyche like the lettering on a stick of rock. It runs so deep within the national character that we have the common spectacle of well-off people preying on the poor by buying up houses to rent to others on a onesy-twosy basis, using the terrible security of tenure in British rental housing facilitated in the Housing Act 1996 to extract cash from those who can't get a mortgage because they are too poor.
So rich people use their better creditworthiness to borrow money to buy houses to let, renting them out to poor people who can't borrow money to buy houses, and making a tidy profit. They even claimed back the tax on the mortgage interest, a privilege denied to the poor saps who are buying a house on a mortgage to live it it. I am pleased to say that this nasty little anomaly has been canned now 😉 Britain has too few houses as it is for people who want to buy-to-live, they don't need BTL (buy-to-let) middlemen inserting their money funnel into the punters' wage packets sponsored on the government's dime.
When the Ermine was a child, this job of landlording to families was largely done by the councils and the poor and even the modestly well-to-do had the option of renting with an adequate security of tenure, but those days were lost when Thatcher bought the votes of the sitting council tenants by selling the council housing stock to them at a knock-down price. The official version of this is of course a roaring success
the policy of giving tenants the Right to Buy on advantageous terms their council houses gave immense pleasure to many who had never imagined being able to possess a place of their own and pass it on to their children. People were ecstatic.
Well, they would be. You always make friends dishing out free money, and it was the discounts (a.k.a. free money) given with Right to Buy that made the impact
the Right to Buy had benefited a large number of individual households but it has also had an uneven impact spatially and socially, has added to residualisation in social renting and has had an adverse strategic impact on housing. The discounts provided under the Right to Buy had inflated the demand for home ownership. In the longer term transfers to private renting further diverted resources to meet higher rents in the private sector rather than providing additional or affordable housing.
Looking back over the history of RTB it is apparent that, rather than the symbolism associated with a legal Right, it was the manipulation of levels of discount that were key to the operation of the policy. The Right to Buy with lower discounts would have had much less impact.
Which is how we got from my London grammar school days when about half the kids lived in council houses, including some of the ones whose parents were white-collar workers, to today where almost half of all local authorities in England no longer have any significant council housing.
Housing is to the Ermine as Moscow was to Napoleon
Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: "Do not march on Moscow". Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good.
So it is with the Ermine – the greatest personal finance error I have ever made was buying a house in 1989. I have never managed to beat that level of numbskullery despite greater resources. Now I hope that this is an indication of actually using the intervening 30 times round the sun to improve the art of being human, but let's face it, the bar was set very low for the depths of financial folly I needed to avoid plumbing again. I moved once since that first house, because a two-up-two down was okay for a bachelor Ermine but when DxGF moved in it was time to get some more space, which is the entirely average three-bed semi I am in now.
When I bought it in the dog days of the dotcom boom, I bought the new house before completing on the old house. That sort of thing makes moving a lot easier, and you can get decoration and rewiring done much easier in an empty house. I hate being a function of other people, so housing chains rub my fur up the wrong way and make me snarl. The amount I had lost on the old house meant I could carry the old house with a combination of savings and a hefty 0% interest loan on a credit card, I had a 90% mortgage on the new house.
I am looking at moving again, and it is a significant distance across country. Retiring is a good time to think about where you want to live, as the limitations placed by working are lifted. It's not necessary to move, but I find the the dreary journey halfway round the M25 to get past the carbuncle of London more and more irritating, now I have the time and the money to travel more. On the other hand, a retiree needs to think about the human setting, so we want to move to an area where we already know a number of people, so in our case that is westwards but not particularly northwards.
We own this house outright, and have stocks and non-residential land assets, the combination is considerably more than the sort of house we are looking at buying.If I put the stocks together with the proceeds from the land assets and cash I hold, I have enough to buy a house of the sort I want before selling the current house. Trouble is all the stocks are in my ISA. Some of the cash is with NS&I ILSCs, ideally I would prefer not to sell that either. Some of it is in my SIPP, had I jumped to it I would have drawn out to just below the higher rate tax threshold last month, but I failed to engage brain there.
I get to do that this month, drawing ~43k gross, and pay £7k in tax. I can chill about that because I would have paid 41% in tax had I not used the SIPP when I earned the money. So I am still 21% better off, and indeed I got the Brexit boost on that last year since it was in some international exUK index fund.
I started to sell out of some of the ISA, though of course keeping the cash in the wrapper until the last moment. I started with the crap, the sorts of things one acquires in a HYP but turned out to be a really bad idea. Many years ago I came to the conclusion that while I may do okay on buying, I have no talent for selling, which is why in the HYP I don't sell out of the crap. Some of it even came good – dogs like RSA eventually crossed the loss to breakeven to profit mark simply by paying dividends. Some didn't, I followed Warren Buffett into Tesco, and, well, 'nuff said, eh? At least I had illustrious company in the cock-up. I paid less than WB 1, but he bailed faster. As Buffett said (p18)
In the world of business, bad news often surfaces serially: You see a cockroach in your kitchen; as the days go by, you meet his relatives.
I ain't got Buffett's talent, I was far too trigger-happy as a seller, so I needed to stop that. That trigger-happiness shows even in my actions here – although I believed I was going to liquidate the entire ISA to raise the cash at the time, I started shooting dogs first. A different way of looking at reversion to the mean might have started to liquidate from the top, after all those are the greatest gains to be crystallised. Once a mutt's lost > 50% most of the damage has been done 😉
Shooting the dogs was easy. Most of them I've had for a long time and they've never come good. Now a fifth of my ISA is cash, and I've run out of hounds to put up against the wall.I had about a twentieth of the ISA as mutts, I sold about a twentieth of good stuff before I just couldn't do it any more, and a tenth I carry in cash because you never know when buying opportunities may show up.
exchanging equities for housing felt that I was marching to Moscow. No good would come of it…
Look at the housing market now. It is up in the sky 2. We have the economic damage 3 of Brexit coming down the pike, inflation is lifting which may bode rising interest rates and the market is softening. That's not necessarily a bad thing for me, as I am looking to move upmarket. I'm not carrying any debt once all is settled so rising interest rates don't trouble me, but they sure as hell will trouble others in the market carrying a huge mortgage based on affordability at 2%. Which will depress prices, because if they can't pay they won't pay.
I looked at what I have left in the ISA and I simply couldn't bring myself to press the sell button, and exchange stocks, something of value, for housing, because I loathe the housing asset class. Couldn't do it even on a temporary basis, as I searched for something else to sell from the ISA and would have had to mine the good stuff I began to feel sick, and an old recording started to play out in the back of my mind. A recording first made in 1990 through to 1992, when I froze in that first house to save money for the mortgage and subsisted on peas, economy bean soup mix 4 and rice while I watched one neighbour get repossessed and the other side jump before that happened. Interest rates came within a hair's-breadth of 15% p.a. Intellectually I can tell myself that things are really different this time because I am not buying as a leveraged buyer with a mortgage, but it's no good. I drank the water from that polluted well before and was sick for ten years. Sure, I've taken losses in the stock market, but never got to lose more than I had to start with…
Repairing the ISA
I need to go fix the damage I did to my ISA estate by trying and failing to convince myself I was going to liquidate it to bridge the housing purchase. I can't honestly say I am that sad to see the back of the dogs, though they did of course serve as a sort of memento mori reproaching me to the tune of "Self, you aren't such a fantastic hot-handed stock-picker – I am TSCO and I remind you that you had absolutely no 'king idea of what you were doing trying to slipstream Warren Buffett, so don't get so full of cock". I have a limit order on some gold that should go through this week, because God knows what the pound will do over the next couple of years, and it'll bring down the cash to 10% where I'm easy with it. There is a case to be made that a fellow with no unwrapped holdings any more should hold his gold outside tax wrappers, because I don't have so much that CGT would be a hassle, and gold doesn't pay dividends which are troublesome outside a tax shelter nowadays. But I just need to get it to a holding position for now. And my Charles Stanley ISA needs to go back into VWRL and L&G Dev World ExUK where it was, so I get to eat a load of transaction costs for my thumb-sucking indecision. Bummer. Still beats the hell out of losing all that ISA tax sheltering. At least I stepped back from the brink. Obviously I'm not putting my £20k new contribution into the ISA while I need short-term float, because I have till nearly this time next year to get round to that.
There's the smell of decay in the air on housing
A grizzled snout sniffs the air, and I smell the sickly scent of putrefaction in the housing market, the scent the youthful Ermine insouciantly ignored. One of the things that puzzles me about housing now is the shocking compression of prices. When I was buying my first house 5 on the terraced places were about £45k, and semis were about £60k 6. Where I am looking Zoopla tell me terraced houses are about £214k and semis are £248k. It's as if the entry-level prices have been skyrocketed proportionally, whereas the incremental costs to get something better has reduced. The terrace to semi ratio was 1.3 in the late 1980s and has fallen to 1.16 – you get a lot more for a little bit extra, and this still sort of holds going up to detached places, which command less of a premium than I expected. It is as if first-time buyers are flattening themselves, artificially boosting the crummy end of the housing market. Looking at my existing area this ratio is about 1.2. Only another 10% on my house would get me a detached house over the road. Of course Zoopla could be full of crap, but these differentials seem very squeezed to me.
The Ermine's twitchy snout has picked up the last ten of the one real housing recessions we've had this millennium, so I am prone to false alarms, that early experience of housing is a distorting lens through which I look at Britain's favourite asset class. It's why I am not a BTL landlord, and property is a lot less than half my net worth. This is not because fundamentally I have a beautiful nature full of compassion for my fellow man, after all if I am not a BTLer then some other person will step into the breach. I am not a BTLer because I am shit scared of the asset class, it's hateful because of what it did to me, it's illiquid, it depreciates much faster with a tenant than an owner-occupier, and there seems a shedload of miscellaneous aggravation that goes with the whole patch.
Everything is vile about buying and selling houses in England. I haven't done it for almost twenty years, and while the experience wasn't great then, many things seem to have become worse. For starters, exactly what reason does an estate agent have to exist in the 21st century? The cheeky blighters seem to want to see proof of capital assets before taking an offer to a vendor, which is not easy in a distant town with ratty internet connections 7 and no printer. This was an absolute blinder on me and was definitely not the case 20 years ago. I suspect there was also some subtle discrimination too, if I had shiny shoes and dressed in a sharp suit I might have been given the benefit of the doubt. But seriously, WTF is the point of an estate agent? I use rightmove to search 8, the days of receiving endless offers of places 200% overbudget through the post aren't something I want to go back to. Rightmove and other Internet sites actually listen and don't show things that are overbudget. I would have thought the Internet would have fixed the problem of estate agents by eating their lunch by now, but it appears not.
I'm also unlucky enough to be selling into a gently softening market sector in Suffolk and a slightly appreciating one where I want to go. Some of that is because of who I am and what I want to buy. I want a detached place because I don't want to hear people's kids, pets and domestics, we want more garden, and stairs if any only in a straight line. I don't want to see children's trampolines and plastic toys, or people fixing cars in their front gardens. I don't want to hear traffic from main roads, and I have no interest in new houses, which are tiny and too close together. I don't want a 'period property' which is a maintenance and energy efficiency hazard. I don't want anything near a river or less than 40m above sea level because of flooding amplified by climate change, low-lying parts of the target region has had problems with this in recent years. Something built from the late 1950s to 1970 is probably about right.
I am competing with old gits like me who have a working life behind them, and what I am selling is a 3 bed semi which is a typical family home. Families made hay with all the child-friendly largesse Labour showered them with in the times of plenty, and are feeling the draught now. Hence the softening market my end. Countering that I am looking to move somewhere where there appears to be zero professional work to be had for forty miles 9 which tends to be the way for attractive places because work is usually a blot on the landscape.
The design of the conveyancing system in England is foul, where there is no commitment from the buyer and seller until exchange of contracts; something done so much better in Scotland and probably just about any other First World country. The English way brings out the worst in both the buyers and sellers, making evil shits of us all. Requiring a 10% escrowed deposit forfeited if either side welch on the deal would improve that no end. Hopefully being a cash buyer will help the power balance for me there, and not having a chain will help with selling. Time will show.
How about joining my fellow countrymen on the never-never?
How about borrowing? It's all the rage on this septic isle, I hear. I can breeze way past the average UK household non-mortgage debt of £13,000 and lift the old stats a bit. Normally the Ermine has the same attitude to debt as a vampire has to sunlight, but:
I have the cash, but it's tax-embargoed in my ISA and SIPP. Unlike the rest of the country, with their rising credit card debt, PCP car loans and whatnot in need of government help to bail them out of their fiscal stupidity, I actually have the money to back the loan. As long as I pay less than 20% over the life of the loan I am better off borrowing the money than paying the extra 40% tax on it taking it from my SIPP, which I need to clear down to £3600 10 before reaching normal retirement age for my main pension.
I can't get a mortgage, because I am too old and mortgage affordability is all about income. I would have thought a DB pension payable in three years time would be good enough as an income but it has to already be in the process of being drawn, and the SIPP doesn't count because I draw in variable amounts a year according to need. The credit card company won't give me an increase in credit limit to use the balance transfer stunt that worked when I bought my first house, because I am poor in their eyes, under the railway arches poor..
In 1989 two credit card firms loaned me £15k, the equivalent of £34,000 today at 0% interest to reduce my mortgage LTV. And they got paid back on time. In those far-off days you didn't have to declare anything other than income on a mortgage application and there were no credit reference agencies. The 20-something year old Ermine doing the most gormless thing in his financial life with no capital was deemed a better risk than the grizzled mustelid of today who actually has capital assets several times the putative loan. No. I'm not bitter and twisted. Really I'm not 😉
I have been a small-time ~5k Zopa lender since 2013 until now when I recalled that to build up reserves, and curiously enough Zopa offered me a decent amount for five years at 3.4%. They had a much better repayment structure too. You have the take the loan for a long term, so that the repayments aren't too high, but for a part bridging loan I don't need to keep the loan for the term. Normally if you take a loan for five years, you don't save any interest repaying it early. With Zopa it seems there is a fixed fee of .6% you pay if you have the loan for a microsecond or all the way to five years, plus 3.2% p.a. As such carrying the loan for six months would cost 2.2% of the loan – much less than a normal five year loan for that APR.
I liked Zopa, though in the end their 25k lending limit isn't really enough to put much of a dent in the ISA. But I've often had the odd tax, ISA filling or CGT need to defer liquidating unwrapped shares from one tax year to another and I wish I'd thought of them before. I've used credit card 0% offers for these applications, but the trouble is one has to borrow about twice as much as needed (and pay the arrangement fee of ~2% of the total) because of the requirement to pay down the loan at 5% of the residual a month. Zopa is a much better match for that sort of thing.
In the end I raised the loan privately. It seems commercial lending to punters is axiomatically all about income, so it will always be mismatched to FI/RE folk. The takeaway from that when interest rates are low is don't pay off your mortgage early – you will often need flexibility as you thread your way in early stages of FI/RE, particularly before you reach your DC pension age (55 at the moment). That mortgage gives you flexibility, and the tax-free pension commencement lump sum is a good fit to paying down the capital – effectively you redeem the capital with deferred pre-tax income.
BTL-ers score several hits on the Ermine by proxy
BTL owners are bad news for owner occupiers, for different reasons than why they are bad for tenants and for first-time buyers. As an owner-occupier you want to move away from such areas. BTLers are strapped for cash, and they aren't there in person to deal with the consequences of their or their tenants' actions. It slightly disturbs me that all the regions I used to live have gone downhill. My parents' place in SE London used to be an owner-occupied zone where they were among the poorer on the block, over nearly 50 years it became a dump where Stephen Lawrence was murdered, I had a pushbike locked to itself half-inched from their drive in the 1990s, they got robbed in the early 2000s. I wouldn't dream of living there if you paid me and provided an armed guard. And it's gone BTL, because, well, it's London.
Two places I had a bedsits in west London seemed to have descended into high streets of dirty chicken shops, betting joints and fast food retail. I guess the areas were already fully landlorded, but landlords in those days used to really own the places they rented, tending to be on a professional and larger scale. The blight of BTL mortgages started in 1996, around the time the AST was enacted, so BTL landlords could know that they could kick tenants out on reasonably short order. The area I bought my first house in Ipswich in '89 has become a BTL rental dump with frequent mattresses on the street and much multiple occupation, and towards the end I had a pushbike nicked from my own back garden – not particularly to do with the BTL-ers but bike thieves prey on studenty neighbourhoods and BTL had made it studenty, so it was worth doing over for bikes. I'm beginning to suspect this downhill drift is a curse on me, but at least so far I've jumped in time…
Hopefully the BTL thing will be reined it a bit by not letting the BTLers squeeze real people who couldn't get tax relief on mortgage interest payments, the poor devils are so desperate that first time buyers sometimes try to masquerade as BTL buyers to get round the way the system is stacked in favour of BTL buyers. I'm going to watch carefully for the presence of BTL in the next place I go.
BTLers have other adverse effects on housing – the market has slowed after being pumped because the buy-to-let brigade are finally getting soaked on tax on the same basis as real people who actually live in the houses they buy. It is perhaps a reason for the softening where I am, I've noticed more To Let signs and when you look on Zoopla they have been recent sales , so BTL was over this area like a rash a couple of years ago.
And finally I take an incidental hit in needing to front the extra BTL secondary home ownership stamp duty tax for the time I have two houses. I have zero ambition to become a BTL landlord, but I have to drum up an extra £10k because of the guilt by association and presumably have to fight HMRC to get it back.
But UK property is hopelessly overpriced?
Yes. It's a foul asset class that has screwed me royally before. It will no doubt screw me royally again, at least to the tune of the difference between what I sell my current house for 11 and the price of what I buy. But for the bulk of the transaction I will be selling a hopelessly overvalued asset to buy a similarly hopelessly overvalued asset. I have another 20-30 years of healthspan if I am lucky. Waiting another two years for the existential clusterfuck that is Brexit to make all of us poorer may save me money if there's a housepricecrash, 12 but it is 10% of that healthspan. The gimlet-eyed older Ermine is more able to take the hit than the fresh-faced twenty-year old Ermine who was shafted by the 1989 housing market. In theory a softening market is good for someone going upmarket, but the devil is in the detail, and there is always devil in anything to do with UK residential property.
- I bought into some of the suckouts, which reduced more my overall cost of acquisition. But TSCO was still a falling knife, and WB is still a better investor than me ↩
- Equities are also up in the sky now, although some of that is the Brexit effect making them look higher. But they've been tracking up since 2009… However, the tax sheltering of my ISA has a separate value of its own, I would be in deep shit with the changes to dividend taxation if I had to hold it unwrapped ↩
- or short-term adjustment to liberation pains if you are a Brexit booster ↩
- I just took a look for bean soup mix and I'm chuffed that they still do this, though the price looks astronomical to me. This stuff explodes in volume when you cook it so the young Ermine could stretch a packet of it a very long way, more than a week ISTR. Note that it's a lot cheaper if you buy the parts from your local store catering to local Asian consumers and mix 'em up yourself rather than buying from Sainsbury's ↩
- Although it was a similar time of excessive valuations, the distorting factor then was couples were rushing to buy to get dual MIRAS tax-relief on 60k rather than 30k, I presume they were targeting the semidetached sector with a view to having kids, whereas now the focus is on get anything ↩
- this was in 1989, the 2016 inflation adjusted amounts are £102740 and £137000 respectively ↩
- in the usual way, everything a mobile phone does, like providing a tethered data connection works, but badly and only a ghost of what it should be ↩
- I do appreciate the irony of using something owned by a bunch of estate agents, but at least they follow my limit and requirement instructions properly ↩
- I am, of course, looking at this with the jaded eyes of an ex-big company careerist, not the dynamic go-getting entrepreneurial sort that the powers that be hope will drag Britain out of the shit in the years to come ↩
- which is the amount non-earners can put in a pension ↩
- when owning two houses there is the risk of the market running against me over the difference. Although every other Briton believes you can't go wrong with property I know from experience you can, and the current falling trend in the housing market is against me if I buy first and sell later, so I will try and minimize that period. Being a cash buyer and chainless seller has some value in the transactions, which may compensate a little for what I lose across the gap. ↩
- HPC's wishful thinking gives them an even worse house price prediction crystal ball than the Ermine, they predict a perma-status of impending house price crash, pretty much the last 100 of the one retrenchments we've had ↩
by Simon
You are totally correct re. estate agents – how do they even still exist? We bought our current, tiny, almost-new 2 bed in 2013 and the estate agent couldn't answer a single question we asked. They simply seemed to be people who turned up with a key. It doesn't surprise me that you are looking West – lots of historic places in Wiltshire but I noticed that picture was of Somerset. Have you considered Herefordshire? You would get a lot of house for your money. I have lived here for nearly 20 years and couldn't recommend it enough – very few Chavs outside the towns! You can even have your own barrow, eventually!
by mattman
Ermine – a wonderful rant but why go west?
Why go to a trendy expensive area (2nd homes?) full of people
Go north.
Hull/North Lincs Wolds. More birding than you shake a stick at.
Make more friends (us yorkshire folk are friendly – ok nosey)
Links to the continent via the Hull/Rotterdam ferry.
You will get a decent house for any southern garret you are living in.
All that stress/worry – why put yourself through it.
Anyway 8 months FI/RE'd at my end and life is gently ticking along with less hassle.
by ermine
"because work is usually a blot on the landscape"
Priceless. Thank you for that 😀
by Mike
Still prefer the version on the DVDs though 😉
What the hell – it's Monday morning, I'm bored and it's hissing down outside !
Interesting article – thanks. I have a dim view of housing too and weirdly since I paid off my mortgage a couple of years ago I feel even more anxious about it. I plan to move this year and my preferred option is to start out renting in the area I'm moving to – who knows, it might suit me long term. It seems odd, as I've not rented anything for thirty years, but I'm just not prepared to fork out nearly 0.5M for a 2 bed terrace in the town I want to live in. Renting seems to me to offer better value, and as you remark there is now clearly downward pressure on rents and prices. In fact I'm finding selling my own place very slow – no offers so far after 6 weeks on the market, compared to three or four within a week of first placing it on the market a couple of years ago before getting cold feet about moving. I've not found a lot of UK originated writing supporting rent vs buy, or tools like the NYTimes one for unpacking the financial details of the decision, but the price/rent ratio is near 30 where I am headed so it looks a good indication to rent to me. Received opinion, in the press and among friends, is solidly behind buying as the sensible choice 'as property prices always go up and houses are the best investment'. And 'rent is dead money' of course. I dunno… I quite like the idea of using the funds from selling my house to spin off enough for rent and hopefully a bit more, then if I fancy going somewhere else, or a mega strom blows the roof off, I just go. I think I would get a better place renting than I can afford to buy as well, and I don't give a monkeys if it is on a river. In your case renting for a bit would save you the 10k for owning a second home for a bit – I'd not hope for much sympathy from HMRC on recoving that. One aspect of renting that may stick in my craw though is the stupidly extortionate level of 'fees' – most agents want 6 weeks rent as a 'deposit' on top of charges for credit checks, 'inventory' and so on. I believe these things are supposed to be addressed by some new legislation but I've seen no evidence of anything changing in the details of rentals over the past few months.
Just an observation on BTL – it is odd, don't you think, that there is no EasyLets or Virgin Property (at least in the ordinary market – I've an idea Virgin do high end vacation homes or something. oh yeah – here it is http://www.virginlimitededition.com/en/ – not quite BTL in Smethwick, is it?). If BTL is such a good idea how come these guys don't bother with it? I think that it would be great though, if there were a couple of big national chains specializing in property rentals. Levels of service to tennants would improve and moving between homes in the same group would be a doddle. I'm sure Richard B must read SLIS so get on it Rich!
by ermine
by ermine
by Living Cheap In London
You will of course be in good company in the West Country when it comes to Megalithic Sites… the author of the most definitive book on UK megaliths lives down near Avebury…. http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/home/
by ermine
by ceratonia
My copy is exactly the same. Started falling apart within a few days. The European version he did as a follow up is fine though.
by ermine
by Red Baron
You aint seen nothing yet, wait till you see the scum that try to buy your house at a knock down price. I sold my mothers house when she was forced into a "care home" ( another bunch of bandits you will come across later in life). Easy to sell an empty house no chain ! you must be joking, sold to a lady who was actually fronting for a builder took 3 months to complete with continual threats to pull out, we are not buying if you don,t remove the garden furnature, then 1 week before completion we are not buying if you don't remove the garden shed WTF.
by ermine
by Living Cheap In London
Thankfully S-L-I-Somerset (& Shropshire) domains are still up for grabs for you 😉
Good luck with the move. I hope the process is as smooth as it can be for you. Personally, I am also very reluctant to move primarily due to the hassle & inconvenience of the experience. The first time I bought the EA actually managed to fail to relay my offer correctly (to include carpets & curtains… not exactly a tricky thing to relay) to the seller, but thankfully i had made the offer in writing, & so between me & the sellers we forced the EA to soak up their mistake in lower % fees from the sale.
by ermine
by Survivor
It'll be very interesting hearing how your experience goes & everyone human will sympathise with the needless hassle encountered that we all dread….. condolences.
* Why not go with an online-only estate agent for a fraction of the selling fee? I've heard good things about some of these outfits, some still have estate agents (despite no high street presence) if you want to deal with mobile people with local knowledge.
* Maybe the fact that housing type is compressed with the starting price so high is because so few starter/smaller/cheaper ones are built, to have any effect?
* You're going to have to change the name of this illustrious site 🙂
* Why not hold your nose & rent for a year or two to avoid duplicating costs while seeing if brexit/election uncertainty drops the price of the place you haven't yet bought? [after having sold the old place at the top] Or conversely, buy outright, then take out a mortgage on the place a bit later when you can get a better deal as pension incomes kick in to tick their boxes?
* I know an estate agency in SW London who said rents are gently coming down now …..& he covers a relatively good area, so maybe we've reached peak lunacy. Atom bank just launched a 5 year fixed-rate at 1.29%, so just possibly, this might mean the bubble is at least deflating – if that's what it takes now to hoover new buyers/cannon-fodder up at the bottom end & keeping the pyramid standing? [ leaning tower of Ponzi ? 🙂 ]
by ermine
by George
You're from Eltham?
by ermine
by George
I lived there on and off in the 1990s, and it always struck me as an odd sort of place. For starters, for SE London it was very white. Also, whilst at some point in its history, it had clearly been quite a well-to-do place, I found myself turned off by its 1960s high street, chavy/delinquent locals, and.. not to mention its being bisected by the Rochester Way relief road.
by ermine
by Simon
As a fellow INTJ, I suspect you are worried about having less in assets than you think you have. Don't forget the sate pension you will get eventually. With no dependents, it is a lot easier to live on less. My father retired at 57 with a relatively small pension but with a paid-off house (and state pension) he and my mum seem to do OK. I don't think state P will be means-tested for some time yet – there will be many other cuts first. The UK pension report projection pdf makes interesting (if dry) reading. Consider Herefordshire! Reasonable motorway access (M5/M50). This is an example of prices.
by ermine
I consider my "investment" in real estate to be the most unrewarding one I've ever made. Never got a penny out of it yet although I don't pay rent on my digs.
I moved from a supposedly high cost area to a lower cost one 12 years ago but just broke even – although we got a new, nicer, better insulated place that meets our needs much more closely than the old one did. Had I waited I'd have done much better financially but I would have missed out on a decade of grandkids, clear skies and no traffic hassles.
I used a realtor to sell and never regretted it – just get the dam' thing out of the way and get on with your life. It was amazing how little interest I had in the old place when the decision was made.
We had family nearby but knew nobody in the town we came to. It didn't take long to fit in though – just do some sort of volunteer work and you are all set.
Our town has a hospital even though it's small and we are not far from excellent care in Ottawa. That was a must in any move we made.
Bottom line – where you live should be made as a lifestyle, not economic decision. In my case we owned two houses for a week – too long in my opinion.
by ermine
Do not for a moment imagine that we moved to an exotic new place like Singapore or Costa Rica. Although we had not visited Almonte before moving here, my wife and I both spent our formative years in Eastern Ontario and we are just a bit further east and north of where we grew up.
In many ways this move took me back 50 years in terms of attitudes, worldview, geography. It's a really cool spot besides – one of the 10 small towns in Canada you'd want to visit.
by Richard
Am I right in thinking that most ISAs are now "flexible" so that you can withdraw what you like in the tax year and put that amount back (plus this year's allowance) so long as you do it in the same tax year?
Thus you could have used your ISA funds to buy the new house so long as you are confident (which of course, you can't be) of selling your old house before the end of the tax year and using those funds to replace what you took out of the ISA.
Of course this would work best if you bought at the beginning of the tax year – that gives you almost 12 months to sell your house.
by ermine
by Richard
I'm certainly no expert, so may be wrong. I thought you could sell your shares within a S&S ISA and then take out that cash – i.e. you wouldn't have to formally t/f to a Cash ISA. The MSE article says "cash held within a stocks and shares ISA can also be flexible".
The Govt link just refers to cash (which could be all your ISA savings over the years) but unhelpfully the example only shows a sub-1 year amount. However the old rules were that any cash taken out could be replaced but counted against the current year's limit. I read the Govt text to mean this was no longer so, thus you could take out whatever cash you had, put it back, and still have the full current year's allowance to use.
This link says "Withdrawals of current year's subscriptions can be replaced in any Isa. If the amount withdrawn exceeds the amount subscribed to the Isa in the current tax year, the excess is treated as a withdrawal of previous years' subscriptions. Previous year withdrawals can be replaced but only to the Isa account from which they were withdrawn." https://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/issues/11-february-2016/do-investors-really-want-osbornes-flexible-isa/
The policy paper also references taking out earlier years' cash – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/individual-savings-accounts-increasing-flexibility-for-savers/individual-savings-accounts-increasing-flexibility-for-savers
However both these links are from before the actual thing came live.
I guess the lack of info is that very few people would want to take out years' worth of cash and be able to replace it before the end of the tax year.
by ermine
by ermine
by JonWB
@Richard @Ermine – Yes, you definitely can withdraw and repatriate the full balance of an ISA (cash or S&S) as long as it is within a single tax year. It is not limited to that years annual contribution.
I went through this with both my ISA manager and directly with HMRC as soon as the new as there are a number of scenarios I can envisage where this might be very useful for me and one of them is the "temporarily owning two properties to break a housing chain" situation.
by ermine
by The Rhino
I wonder if these flexibility rules could extend to me selling up a bit of this years (fully subscribed) S&S ISA such that I can open a LISA?
by Richard
I think you can. This link says "However, where you have subscribed some or all of your £20,000 allowance in the current tax year to a Flexible ISA and you withdraw any part of that subscription, you will be able to use that amount again – either to re-subscribe to the Flexible ISA, or to subscribe to a Cash ISA or an Innovative Finance ISA or to a Lifetime ISA (if you are aged between 18 and 39)."
This link says the same but omits the references to the LISA http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/flexible-ISAs
So…not sure. I'd ask your current provider with the intention of using them for the LISA. They should know whether they'd allow it.
by Red kite
Simple living in Wiltshire? Or will you leave the blog behind when you go? And what about the farm? Why do you need to move away – presumably the human factor is strongest where you are now, having been built for decades?
I think it's not trivial trying to embed in a community later in life (or really at any time, but there are life stages where it's easier to find people as they are looking too). My strongest friendships are the ones that are thirty years old…fortunately some of them are still close enough to see regularly.
by ermine
Cheers for the link and good luck with the move, ermine. Worth considering chucking your spare ISA cash at some new Dogs seeing as you've gotten rid of some old ones?
by ermine
I'd second the suggestions to go oop north. You'll get a lot more bang for your buck and t'folk are friendlier (Q: How do you know if someone is from Yorkshire? A: Don't worry, they'll tell you).
On the whole rent/buy point, I take the view that since everyone needs somewhere to live; by owning a place you're effectively 'neutral' on housing. Running costs of a home are explicit if you bear them yourself as the owner or implicit via the rent, because the landlord sure as hell won't be paying for it from the sweat of their own back.
Renters are 'short' housing and open to the caprices of the UK AST landscape. Second homers, BTLers or buy-before-you-sellers are 'long' and have geared up to a very illiquid and undiversified asset class. Risky at the moment given the febrile Brexit backdrop.
Given you've got the means, it seems mad to stint yourself if you want to trade up to a nicer pad.
by ermine
by Mike
"Q: How do you know if someone is from Yorkshire? A: Don't worry, they'll tell you"
I rather like the (I hope slightly tongue-in-cheek ! :-)) Bill Bryson comment "I love Yorkshire and Yorkshire people. I admire them for their bluntness …if you want to know your shortcomings, you won't find more helpful people anywhere."
Personally, I find Geoff Boycott's occasional tell-it-like-it-is kick up the backside when England have had a collective brain-left-in-locker-room session rather refreshing in this day and age too ! I could do better with a stick'a rhubarb, etc !! 😉
Dunno what's going on down in Hampshire at the moment – following on, Jeez.
by Col
Best of luck with the move Ermine. I've followed your blog from very early days and always felt a close bond. We're about the same age, I too worked for "the firm" and I too disliked the corporate mentality and needed a big change in life but didn't know what it was. The thing is, I enjoy work and didn't feel the need to retire early but had enough of the "man", the performance reviews and the stress. If I mention the word "Cisco" you'll know what game I was in. My solution – I found a low stress IT job working for a decent crowd. The gross pay is around half of what I used to earn (but not the net). I don't miss the money – and I can do the job with my eyes closed so no stress.
This all entailed a house move from the South Yorkshire area to the beautiful Usk valley in South Wales. I really thought it would be hard to sell and easy to buy but how wrong was I. We sold the house in a couple of months and rented on a farm near Monmouth. The next 12 months we looked long and hard to buy a house but nothing met our criteria (the estate agents we found to be totally useless, no interest at all that we were cash buyers, ready to move in an instant etc). It turned out that the farmer was converting an old barn on the hill on the other side of the valley which we had watched being built. We always knew that it would be a rental property and had dismissed it because of the "buying is good, renting is bad" mantra but one weekend after viewing another dismal property the farmer invited us to look round the barn which was nearing completion. One step over the threshold and WOW….. funny how your beliefs can evaporate in an instant. We are now in the exact house that we wanted all along. Ok, we now rent long term but the money in the bank (and shares etc) covers quite a substantial amount of the rent and a couple of percentage points rise in interest rates will see us break even. Also the farmer/landlord is the salt of the earth, nothing is too much of a problem for him. And…. we've never been happier. A glass of wine on the patio overlooking the river valley on a sunny evening and all is well with the world.
Sorry about the long posting but if there is a message here, the lesson learned for me is – be careful in sticking to long held beliefs as they may not bring you the happiness you seek. I now tell people that buying is absolutely the right decision when you are young. When you get to my (our) age, it's not cut and dried.
Here's wishing you good fortune.
by ermine
by Nick
I wonder what your advice would be for someone looking to get on the ladder? I cannot resolve the rent/buy argument and have not been able to for years. I'm in a somewhat unique position (aren't I a special snowflake.)
I've saved well and have about 100k at 29years old (largely index funds/pension and some cash.) I live in Northern Ireland and do well in my area of expertise within software development. That said, I feel like I've hit a soft ceiling unless I move to management or contracting. The unique part is my soon to be wed fiancee has chronic fatigue syndrome and cannot work. I'm a bit worried about the risk factor of the house and losing the option of geo-arbitrage with a mortgage. I'm hoping we can get her to a comfortable state for living but I'm acting as though she will never work and bring in money.
In terms of property, I'm looking at a few areas in a 10-mile radius of Belfast I can commute via my bicycle…my insight stops there….no kids on the horizon but have been looking at 3-beds we could make a project and not lose too much money on.
by ermine
by James
Hi Nick, Ermine,
I'm in a very similar situation! I'm 36, living in Northern Ireland with about £100k of savings, of which £40k is pension.
My (recent) wife and I are casually house-hunting and I share similar fears to Ermine. House prices are high because interest rates are low.
We're looking at putting down 15 – 20% on houses up to the £180k mark, as I've estimated that we could still afford the mortgage if interest rates went to 5% and we both had to work minimum wage jobs.
What worries me most is the potential fall in value if (when) interest rates rise. I will, like Ermine, look back and wish I'd waited just a few more years, during which time our deposit would have grown and we'd be paying less for the house.
My best guess, based on a decent history (back to the 1950s) of house prices and interest rates (as well as demographics, which are also a major factor) is that house prices, at least in Northern Ireland, are not THAT high – maybe 10%-20% above fair value
I think I've decided that I'm happy to buy IF the house bowls us over and offers us a better quality of life than our rental property AND we don't stretch ourselves.
Sadly (or fortunately, but only time will tell), we've yet to find somewhere that we love at the budget we've set ourselves.
by Nick
Hey Ermine,
I'm curious what you think your 29year old self would do in todays times? You sound extremely down on the housing market in the UK, therefore I imagine you'd get shot of the UK altogether and move elsewhere to prosper?
Thank you for your reply to my previous conundrum. I clearly didn't explain myself well but your answers still covered things nicely!
by ermine
by Nick
Hey James,
where are you looking in terms of your house hunt? I must say I'm amazed there aren't more tools to help find an ideal house based on individual circumstances. As mentioned I've basically drawn a radius on google maps, yet I cannot find anyone doing anything more complex than this!?
I'd agree with your evaluation of the NI housing market. I guess my concerns come with the loss of disposable income and increased risk. All of a sudden my saving rate implodes and options begin to narrow.
We were looking at comber but it surprised me that there wasn't much gained in terms of a favourable price difference or land as you moved out, it all seemed pretty similar!
Have you been using any decent resources to help you in your hunt?
by James
Hi Nick,
I'm using PropertyPal mostly. I then use Google Maps for street view and Google Earth for surrounding area / garden aspect.
We're looking North, as my wife is from Newtownabbey and now works in Carrick. Her parents live in Newtownabbey too, so that will be nice if/when we have a family!
We're in South Belfast at the moment, renting a gorgeous duplex apartment, but it's far too expensive for us to buy here.
We're finding lots of nice houses in Newtownabbey and Carrick, but sometimes Carrick can be a bit uninspiring in terms of large housing estates.
There are some that are surprisingly nice, with south facing gardens and/or views of the lough / harbour though.
by Tom
Have you not googled the 18 year housing cycle ? It's 12 years up and 6 years down. It fits pretty well if we go back through time.
1989 was a peak, 6 yrs down = 1995, which was the low point. 12 yrs up = 2007, which we all know was the peak and 6 yrs down = 2013. So the next peak will be 2025.
Now London has a different cycle makeup to Newcastle. The further north you go the longer the down time and shorter up time. Because you are still staying down south i would say your cycle is going to be more like 5 down yrs and 13 up.
I think london is currently in the one year cool off phase of the up swing. This will be moving higher in london still again.
I wonder, though, if what actually happens in London is a really quick charge up at the beginning of an upswing and then stagnation for many years after while the rest of the country plays catch up. London then turns negative for a 4 year period and as it enters a new upswing the north is actually finishing its peak.
I try and look at prices in yorkshire where i am based and it does seem peak prices were being achieved in 2009 for some properties (well past the peak).
Anyway this cycle is real and can be used very effectively based on where you are in the country.
For me i based BTL buying on it when i discovered the cycle in 2010. I started expanding my BTL's in 2012/13/14/15/16. All have achieved great capital growth, but i buy and renovate and this is my job. All houses get 11-15% yields and i have done really well out of them. Buying now is harder, unless i want to go further north, but i want to work in my own area and i am not an arm chair BTL. I do everything myself from putting new windows in to laying the carpets.
Housing without doubt has been my saviour. I also have share savings in my ISA. Lost pretty much 60% of all my holdings after i focused on the banks. The worst period in my life, but the houses kept paying out and saved me.
Housing has been very much safer and more wealth producing than the stock market. You would also have the same opinion, but because you bought at a peak, you have struggled to make property work for you.
by ermine


text:
I'll be visiting San Francisco in the fall for the first time. I would very much appreciate recommendations across the spectrum of options from high-end restos, to hot new restos, to old favorites. I would particularly appreciate recommendations for the following:
a good local sandwich
any local specialty
Looking forward to it...

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Monsignor Tommaso is an ambitious priest whose life at the Vatican is interrupted when Susan, the lover he deserted fifteen years earlier in Australia, tells him that their daughter has disappeared. Guided by Aboriginal tribesman Willie, Tommaso discovers another world in the Australian outback, where mysticism and tribal magic are prevalent.
Though the film is constructed as a thriller (Tommaso's daughter goes missing in a part of the country being menaced by a serial killer), it also has conscious fantasy elements, in Tommaso's dreams of an Indigenous Australian man whom he later meets in person in Australia and in the way in which his former lover's pleas for help penetrate his sub-conscious despite his life of isolation in the Vatican City.


text:
Subaru is recalling more than 600,000 cars--including some Legacy, Outback, Tribeca, and Forester models--for a defect in door lights that may short circuit and lead to a fire. A notice on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) website puts the number of vehicles potentially...Read More»
Subaru is recalling certain 2010-2011 Legacy and Outback models over concerns of overheating in the windshield wiper motor assembly bottom cover. A notice from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) lists the number of potential affected units at 195,000. Affected vehicles were...Read More»
Sometimes you just get good news. In this case, it's the fact that family cars dominate the list of least expensive cars to insure in 2010 – according to InsWeb, a leading online insurance comparison provider. To arrive at the list, InsWeb compared all car insurance quotes (covering 400...Read More»
The leaves are starting to turn, and soon, the weather will turn with them. In some places, it will turn downright nasty. Remember those three foot snow drifts last winter? Remember the car you couldn't get out of them? If you live on the East Coast, or in parts of the mountain west, you do. And if...Read More»
It's the best way to drive. We're at little biased here. But then again, we do this for a living; and driving dozens of cars every year, we can assure you, there is nothing quite like rowing your own as you put a car through its paces. We prefer the manual transmission. It puts you more in touch...Read More»
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has announced a recall of the 2010 Subaru Outback and the 2010 Subaru Legacy. The NHTSA website has minimal details at the moment, stating only that the recall centers on the steering system and connectors, however, a nearly identical recall was...Read More»
In recent years, both Subaru and Honda have marketed special versions of their vehicles to pet owners, including "pet-friendly" accessories to make riding in cars safer for non-human species. Now, Subaru is taking the next step by offering driving lessons to dogs and other pets. The company plans a...Read More»
The hottest segment in the family car market right now without question is car based crossovers. What makes a crossover different from an SUV (allegedly) is that they are usually based on car platforms while SUVs are based on truck platforms. Whatever differences there may be between an old-school...Read More»
Subaru (TSE: 7270) and Honda (NYSE: HMC) are tied for the number one spot from Consumer Reports this year, based on the average of its vehicles' overall road-test scores and predicted reliability ratings. Subaru's overall score was aided by the excellent evaluations given to the new 2010 Subaru...Read More»
For only the third time in the last 17 years, one automaker has dominated the awards at Detroit's North American International Auto Show. This year's is the 21st exhibition. Ford's Fusion Hybrid was named the 2010 North American Car of the Year and the Transit Connect was named the 2010 North...Read More»
As overall auto sales have slumped, Subaru has been one of the few bright spots in the auto industry this year, with many year-over-year sales increases to report; in fact, through November of this calendar year, Subaru has already sold as many vehicles as it did in all of last year. And over the...Read More»
In Portland and Seattle, or throughout the coastal or mountain backcountry of the Pacific Northwest, you won't have to look long to find a Subaru Outback. They're every which way you look, in the driveways of everyone from windsurfers to skiers to antiquing empty nesters. And if there's an official...Read More»
Some families still want a good traditional station wagon. Especially when they learn they're about to have twins. Reader Ari Bajtner noticed the 2010 Subaru Outback review on our sister site FamilyCarGuide.com, and shot us a note. He writes, "Hey! My wife is expecting twins in April 2010. As our...Read More»
Price: starting at $22,295 If you have ever lived in one of the Snowbelt states like Colorado then no doubt you have seen them puttering around the streets in all their hyper-reliable all wheel drive glory. More so even than Audi, a company that has also built a name from building highly competent...Read More»
Never let it be said that users don't read our reviews with an eagle eye. Reader Keith Siegel shot us a note this morning, asking the following question: I was surprised to see a score of "8" for Features in your 2010 Subaru Outback review. The only negative was the failure to offer memory seats...Read More»
The completely redesigned 2010 Subaru Legacy and 2010 Subaru Outback—which we've reported on extensively this summer—also now have the honor of being named among the safest vehicles in their class. They've both been given the Top Safety Pick designation from the Insurance Institute for Highway...Read More»
The Subaru Outback occupies a unique niche in the US market. The company calls it a "sport utility wagon," which slightly overshadows the fact that it's ... yes ... a station wagon. A wagon with all-wheel-drive, like all Subarus, but a wagon nonetheless. The Outback, in fact, is the highest-volume...Read More»
Subaru fans, today's your lucky day: the company has announced pricing for two of the stars in its lineup, the 2010 Legacy and the 2010 Outback. The new Legacy starts at $19,995 and features a fairly broad range of powertrain packages. The base model is the 2.5i, available with both manual and...Read More»
Subaru's one of the few automakers who enjoyed sales increases for 2008. Today at the New York International Auto Show they introduced their new 2010 Outback, which is based on the completely redesigned 2010 Legacy chassis. It's fitting Subaru chose the U.S. for the 2010 Outback's release; many of...Read More»


text:
Hi Guys and Gals.
I'm house sitting this weekend. Yay, extra money!
I don't have a lot of social stuff planned so what I'd LIKE to do is sit in the house all day surfing the net but THAT's not healthy so instead, I will attack my to-do list which is a mile long.
Some of the to-dos include:
Getting more stuff I'm not using out of my storage unit. I need to make space, as I want my storage unit to be like a clothes closet. I will go there every two or three days to get clothes….maybe everyday. I used to worry that people would notice me going to the storage unit a lot and figure out I'm a free-sleeper and ??? What I found out though is that in my city, people are really into themselves and they aren't paying attention to what I'm doing. I'll still watch my back…I've always been pretty vigilant about my safety, but I think going to the storage every couple of days will be okay. It also seems to me that it's a good place clean out my van a little. I hate doing that out in the public eye.
Talking to a friend about making me a platform to put my "bed" on in the van. I am nervous about this because this friend doesn't know I have lived and will live in my van again. I'm afraid it will make him sad. A lot of men friends that I have told have been supportive but they are always trying to get me to get a better job etc. so I don't have to stay in the van anymore. Isn't that sweet? Men are so nice! Anyway, he is a carpenter and the logical choice for this project. I don't know if he'll have time to complete it before I'm back living in the van or not but it doesn't matter. I need to get the ball rolling.
I need to get either an air mattress or a futon bed for the van. The back bench seat isn't super comfortable and I must find a way to sleep horizontal in the van, so I can get some leg room! The reason I am thinking about a futon bed (without the frame, of course) is because it seems like it might be more comfy than an air mattress. I've never slept on an air mattress before. Are they comfortable? So I guess I need to do more research on comfort and measure the area I want to cover. Maybe a futon bed would be too big for the area.
I need to take the back bench seat out of the van. I don't want to do it because it means I have to find a place for all the things I keep behind it. (Storage unit, of course!) I would like to sell the back bench seat for two reasons. I would like the money, but mostly I don't know how else to get rid of it!
I have a lot more items on my to do list but this these items will take up a lot of my day, so I won't bore you with the non-van related items.
Finally, Mooch made a video where he mentions me and this blog. In case you don't know, Mooch is a homeless entrepreneur living out of his car in the Los Angeles area. He helped my create this blog and hosts it for free on his server. Like I said, men are so nice! 🙂


text:
Results 1 to 1 of 1
Thread: Problem wih mysql installation
06-11-04, 03:57 #1Registered User
- Join Date
- Feb 2004
- Posts
- 105
Unanswered: Problem with mysql installation
Hi, I have downloaded and installed the MySql 4 from www.mysql.com but whenever I try to run the mysql from Command Prompt (C:\mysql\bin>mysql) an error message is appeared (ERROR 2003: Can't connect to MySql server on 'localhost' <10061>). I have WinXP Pro.What is going rong?
Last edited by NonLinear; 06-11-04 at 11:55.


text:
Coal was formed over hundreds of millions of years.
During the Carboniferous period (290 to 360 million years ago) the ancient continent of Gondwana was largely covered by a huge ice sheet, which blanketed small rift valleys in the area now known as Collie.
By the start of the Permian (240 to 290 million years ago) the ice had gone, although the climate was still cold and wet. Broad rivers which meandered through the landscape deposited sand and silt, which was interspersed with peat formed in damp forests and bogs nearby. Compaction of these layers and some further movement on fault lines caused the Permian sediments to be gently folded down into the older valleys.
Erosion during the later Triassic (200 to 240 million years ago) and Jurassic (135 to 200 million years ago) removed most of the Permian sediments, sparing only those protected within the deepest of the older valleys.
This erosion was brought about by formation of the Darling Scarp, a massive fault which runs parallel to the Western Australian coastline for 1000 kilometres. The Collie Basin (and two smaller but similar coal basins near Boyup Brook to the south east of Collie) are the only Permian remnants east of this fault.
The Cretaceous (65 to 135 million years ago), spelled the end for Gondwana as the continent broke up into four main pieces, three of which are now call South America, Africa and India. The fourth piece consisted of Australia and Antarctica, which stayed more or less intact throughout the period.
In the Collie area, flat lying sands and clay were deposited in the bed of a shallow lake, covering the upturned and eroded edges of the Permian sediments with a layer now know as the Nakina Formation.
The surface between the Permian and Cretaceous rocks is called an unconformity and represents over 100 million years of "lost" geological history. The Nakina Formation covers the Permian sediments, which generally do not outcrop. The coal exposure found in 1883 is still the only one known and today is difficult to see.
The Collie Basin is about 26 kilometres long and about 13 kilometres wide. It contains three distinct groups of seams that are from the top termed the Muja, Premier and Ewington Coal Measures.
- Muja seams are mined by Griffin Coal in the Muja Mine.
- Premier seams are mined by Griffin Coal in the Ewington Mine.
- Ewington seams are found around the edges of the basin and were formerly mined in many of Griffin Coal's early open cut and underground workings.


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Drop Shipping To Europe — Should You Target One Country Or All Of Europe? | TBS #335
When you're drop shipping to Europe there's a few things you should pay attention to. Most importantly you should streamline everything as much as possible to increase your conversions and sales. A lot of people… Read More


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Mr Thompson told an audience of 100 guests including Bruce Forsyth, John Humphrys and Jeremy Clarkson that the corporation has not lost its creative nerve in the wake of recent taste and decency rows should not stifle their creativity.
He said that the decision to invite the BNP to appear on Question Time, airing the political satire The Thick of It showed that the licence-fee funded broadcaster was not afraid of controversy.
The private meeting will be seen as a moral boost to the corporation's talent following recent controversies around 'political correctness'.
Mr Thompson said: "editorial guidelines are just guidelines", and while he asked for stars to "use their judgment" he will also promised that "there is freedom at the BBC to take risks".
The director general has personally been accused of creating a "climate of fear" where all comics are too scared to write potentially offensive jokes in the wake of the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand affair.
The comedian Frankie Boyle was rebuked after he described Rebecca Adlington, the double Olympic gold medallist, as "somebody's who's looking at themselves in the back of a spoon" on the BBC Two panel show Mock The Week.
The Trust ruled last week that the joke was offensive and humiliating, with no editorial justification for it being broadcast.
Boyle refused to apologise, telling Time Out magazine that "the number-one priority in TV comedy today is 'don't frighten the horses".
The corporation was also criticised after an episode of This Week, the politics programme, was taken off the BBC's iPlayer last month after the presenter Andrew Neil described Diane Abbott, the black Labour MP, as a "chocolate hobnob" – which led to fifteen complaints from viewers.
Jimmy Mulville, joint managing director of Hat Trick Productions, the television production company that makes programmes such as Have I Got News For You and The Kumars at No 42 blamed the director general for damaging comedy in television earlier this year.
He said: "The atmosphere now is one of retrenchment. There are rules, but the people on the ground floor [of the BBC] don't know quite where they stand with them."
He added: "I'm not saying that it's anyone's fault at the BBC except for, probably, Mark Thompson. The fish rots from the head down."


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Tomasz Malolepszy eBooks
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European Soccer Championship Results: Since 1958
Tomasz Malolepszy & Tomasz Maolepszy
Scarecrow Press, March 2013
Format: ePub
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The Refrigerator Trailer (1991)
"No survivors. Only leftovers." 11 January 1991 Fantasy, Horror, Comedy 86 mins
A couple move into a bad apartment in a bad neighborhood in New York. The apartment contains a refrigerator, which is the only thing they like in the place. However, they slowly discover that the refrigerator is a monster which kills people in gruesome ways and then sends them to hell. The refrigerator is already gaining mind control over the husband. What will happen?
Watch the official The Refrigerator 1991 trailer in HD below or find more The Refrigerator videos on Vidimovie.


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Allyson HaneyOhio, US
English (North American), English
North American
Child, Middle Aged, Teen, Young Adult
Special Skills
Audiobooks, Business, Cartoons, Internet, Jingles, Movie Trailers, Music, Podcasting, Radio, Telephone, Television, Videogames
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Hire Allyson as a voice actor. Payment is made through Voices.com SurePay, an escrow service that guarantees your work is done to your satisfaction. Send payment securely by Visa, Mastercard or PayPal through Voices.com then download your files from the website.
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Next Steps
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text:
Our Kick off to Summer is in full swing with lots of ideas and recipes for Memorial Day. Make sure to check below for today's giveaway and sponsor!
With hubby leaving in just over two weeks for a very long "trip" we are trying to make Memorial Day a special one for the kiddos, in hopes that they can remember his farewell and have some good memories to think about over the next months.
The boys love to have parties, so I decided to do just a little party, the five of us. I wanted it to be simple, because we had so many other things we were trying to accomplish before his departure. I didn't need ONE more thing to add to our huge list! The things I made and used were really simple, or store bought.
Arranging everything out for the buffet probably took the longest….well maybe the waffles took a smidge longer.
We're talking store bought Danishes with fresh fruit sprinkled on top. From someone who doesn't like the store bought Danishes, these were actually really good. It is amazing what a little fresh fruit can do!
They were ready for this party! We had been talking about it for a couple of weeks.
I'm pretty sure the milk (well the doughnut) was their favorite. They told me that this is how milk should be served…cold, with a straw, topped with a doughnut!
The fruit really gave everything a lot of Patriotic flair.
Everyone's facial expressions cracked me in the photo above. It was one of the only pictures that my husband wasn't a COMPLETE blur…he never sits still.
This was so simple. Vanilla yogurt and fruit. I have to say, I think the kids would have enjoyed it a bit more with some granola to sweeten it up.
I had to show you baby girl's outfit. My goal is to duplicate this bib top with some other fabrics for this summer. It is so cute!
So, there you go, a REALLY easy Memorial Day Brunch. I probably could have used frozen waffle, but we like fresh ones better. So, it did add a few more minutes. But, this could easily be pulled together quickly for a group or even just your family.
What kind of shortcuts do you do for parties and meals?
Now for the good stuff…more ideas and our giveaway! Thanks for hanging in there! Here is what you have been waiting for. Make sure to check out all of the posts for great Memorial Day ideas and yummy recipes.
Welcome to Day #3 of Kick Off to Summer Week, a multi-blogger event co-host by Lauren of From Gate to Plate and Summer of Summer Scraps. With summer quickly approaching and Memorial Day in a few weeks, we wanted to make sure you had plenty of ideas for your Memorial Day activities. Each day we will be serving up a variety of different appetizers, main dishes, desserts, decor, printables and more all centered around the up-coming Memorial Day.
We hope you enjoy all of these wonderful ideas. Tune in each day starting with Monday, May 12 and ending on Saturday, May 17. We have great prizes up for grabs throughout the week so you will not want to miss out on any of the days! Follow #KickOffToSummerWeek2014 on Twitter to keep up to date with all of our spectacular ideas and giveaways!
Still wanting more?! Check out the rest of the #KickOffToSummer2014 awesomeness below!
Lemon Honey & Rosemary Grilled Chicken Skewers by From Gate to Plate
Sausage & Veggies Tinfoil Dinner by Summer Scraps
Baked Rosemary Garlic Fries by Keep it Simple, Sweetie
Homemade Natural Bug Spray by The Haas Machine
Memorial Day Festivities by Lil Huckleberries
Corn Cob Jelly by Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks
Marshmallow Fruit Dip by Forty Eighteen
Trail Mix Oatmeal Cookies by Lady Behind the Curtain
BBQ Invitation Printable by My Daylights
Rhubarb Crisp by Love in the Kitchen
Mixed Berry Sweet Rolls by Like Mother, Like Daughter
Liberty Embroidery Pattern by Bits of Ivory
Red White and Blue Trifle by We Like to Learn as We Go
Chickpea Tabouli by Food Lust People Love
Dark Chocolate Pistachio Cookies by Life on Food
Our sponsor for today is Gourmet Garden Herbs & Spices. If you enjoy cooking with fresh ingredients you will just love Gourmet Garden! Gourmet Garden herbs are organically grown then simply washed, chopped, blended and packed into tubes to maintain the herbs freshness and nutrition. With Gourmet Garden you will be able to keep fresh herbs in your fridge for months with no waste. They have a variety of herbs such as Garlic, Basil, Cilantro, Chili Pepper and much more! You can find Gourmet Garden in the fresh produce section of your supermarket. Be sure to keep up-to-date with Gourmet Garden Herbs & Spices on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
Gourmet Garden has so graciously offered up a cooler full of herbs and spices perfect for you next cooking and baking experience. Your cooler will include 4 ounce bottles of:
Chili Pepper
Italian Herbs
Lemon Grass
**Giveaway runs May 14 until May 21, 2014 at midnight EST. Giveaway is open to US Residents only. Winner must be 18 years of age or older. No cash value available**
**Disclaimer: This giveaway is being sponsored by Gourmet Garden. #KickOffToSummerWeek2014 bloggers have not received product or been compensated as part of this giveaway!**
Linking up to :Fry Sauce & Grits