Refreshed by a gentle festive season, I sit down to pen my words of wisdom with a calm sense of optimism and a feeling that everything in the garden is rosy. Oh, sorry, I must have been thinking of a different year. This one seems to have started with the only thing better than bad news, being no news! Continue reading Dog’s Breakfast
Category Archives: Money Matters
Money matters
What Goes Up – Part 2
In the last edition I left you, dear Reader, in a state of suspense, having just mentioned the infamous Northern Rock Building Society. Twelve years, or so, ago, we lived in a world of readily available finance, at broadly average interest rates, with little restriction on the level of borrowing. World economies were doing well, and property values were increasing steadily, resulting in a general feeling of prosperity for the majority. Continue reading What Goes Up – Part 2
What Goes Up – Part 1
Having recently attended a 25th anniversary seminar session organised by a highly esteemed mortgage packaging company, I am minded that the market has changed, enormously, over the time I have been working. In 1986, when I joined the financial services industry, the Bank or Building Society Manager, was King. Either you had to have been saving with an institution to amass your deposit, then go cap-in-hand to the Manager; or pay a visit to an intermediary, who had the ear of a few local managers and was trusted to introduce business to them. In any event, a deposit of some 20-30% would be required before most lenders would consider candidates to be suitable borrowers. Continue reading What Goes Up – Part 1
What a Tangled Web
In this issue David Foot makes some observations on the current financial climate and the circumstances that affect it.
The first thing to note is that volatility has returned, to a fair degree, in world markets. As I have said before, a degree of volatility is not a bad thing: it provides buying opportunities for investors and Fund Managers, where they can buy some appropriate stocks at discount prices. Continue reading What a Tangled Web
Interest-Only Mortgages
In this article David Foot addresses the issue of interest-only mortgages, and, more specifically, a shortfall of funds with which to repay them when they fall due.
This is inspired by a case that I have been dealing with recently. My client, a lady in her mid-forties, was sold an endowment mortgage; an interest-only borrowing facility with a life assurance and savings plan alongside, intended to provide the requisite life cover, and a tax-free lump sum enough to repay the borrowed amount, and, hopefully, a tidy little nest-egg over and above that. Continue reading Interest-Only Mortgages
The Whistler 