Tuesday, January 05, 2010
A Word on the Best Property Commentators
I thought it best to qualify my forecast about house prices in my pre-Christmas blog post.
Those forecasts I made don’t allow for any really crazy stuff that may happen – like the UK deciding to waste more money (and sadly more lives) in yet more unwinnable wars, a terrible pandemic or an earthquake leveling some major financial centre or other.
Or indeed, the so called “Masters of The Universe” in their red braces up in the square mile could come up with some other daft financial instrument that no one, not even their own bosses and certainly no financial journalist either knows about or understands – which leads to another economic meltdown.
Stuff like that is hard to quantify, allow for or to take account of in one’s calculations mainly because the probability (of it happening) is so hard to predict.
Personal Finance and Journalism
Talking about predictions, one of the curious things in 2007-8 was the fact that so few financial journalists saw the credit crunch coming.
Hardly any of them had an understanding of how the financial alchemy being practiced in the city (the CDOs and the like) worked and how it could end up hurting all of us so much.
You cannot blame them too much for this though.
As I have said before, it was pretty obvious that tne directors of the banks did not have a clue either.
The FT was better than most though at seeing that something was amiss and I am very indebted to whomever at the FT wrote that it would be best to pass up on the Royal Bank of Scotland’s ludicrous rights issue at 200 pence a share (now the subject of legal action against directors).
Thanks FT.
Thanks to you, I passed up on that rights issue and have you to thank when RBS sold my rights at 227 pence - a profit of 27 pence a share.
When it comes to personal finance investments I highly rate the commentary of John Authurs and Mathew Vincent (both at the FT), David Smith (Sunday Times), Nick Hasell (Times) and David Kuo (Motely Fool).
Many other commentators leave a lot to be desired.
Property Experts
And what about the property experts?
I have to say that when it comes to property predictions over the years I have noticed that there are some regular journalist-commentators who are always more right than wrong and whose analysis of the true situation in the residential property market is first class.
They are David Smith again (of the Sunday Times), Claer Barratt (of the FT and Investors Chronicle), Anne Ashworth (Times), Jeremy Gates (PA) and Michael O Flynn (FindaProperty.com).
There are some other good people too - but these are the regular writers whose work I most admire.
Many other writers, I’m afraid, are often terribly wide of the mark with one “quality paper” in particular always hopelessly wrong about property. (Sorry, cannot name them in case they read this and get mad at me.)
Non journos who also understand the market well are Ray Boulger, anyone at Savills and Knight Frank and Stuart Law of Assetz.
In the professional landlord magazine / website arena you will know that I greatly admire Tom Entwistle (of Landlord Zone) and Richard Bowser (of Property Investor News)
Listen to all these experts and journos for your tips and you won’t go too far wrong.
Here We Go Again
More snow is expected today and we will no doubt see the usual hopeless response as some City Hall staff and schools up and down the land take the opportunity for yet another day off. (Is it me but do kids get more days off anyway for holidays than when I was a nipper?)
Last year our brilliant Mayor of London walked off from a grilling when someone suggested that perhaps it might have been a bright idea to have the gritting and snow plough people staying somewhere close to their vehicles ready to work overnight as soon as last years' snow started.
They weren’t and so the whole of London ground to a halt for 2 days.
Pathetic!
MORE ABOUT LETTINGFOCUS AND WHAT WE DO
LettingFocus.com is the home of landlord information.
Hello, I’m David Lawrenson.
I have been a landlord and property investor myself for over 25 years and am author of “Successful Property Letting” – which has been the UK’s top selling property and buy to let book for the last 3 years.
At LettingFocus.com, we help landlords and property investors make money in property by coaching them in ways that work, which are ethical and which involve minimal risk to the investor.
We pride ourselves on giving independent unbiased buy to let advice on either a one to one mentoring / coaching basis or through our occasional group seminars.
Unfortunately, in the UK today, property advice in the UK is still largely unregulated and what counts as “good advice” is too often more about making the promoter money than giving useful information to the investor.
With no links to property firms, developers or bridging loan providers we can advise on where and what type of property to buy for investment and when to buy it. We also show you how to manage tenants properly.
At a corporate level, we also provide consultancy for banks, local authorities and social housing providers – helping them with their landlord facing or buy to let product strategies. We also write for property websites and are regularly quoted by the media.
We have written articles for numerous publications including The Independent, The Telegraph and quality landlord websites.
AT OUR WEBSITE LETTINGFOCUS.COM:
THE HOME PAGE OF THIS BLOG click here: Blog
THE HOME PAGE OF OUR MAIN SITE click here: LettingFocus Home Page
ONE TO ONE PRIVATE CONSULTANCY click here: Property Mentoring
NEXT SEMINAR AND NETWORKING EVENT for Landlords and Property Investors:
Next Property Investment Seminar and Networking Event
We have OFFERS on a range of services and products for landlords too; click here including landlords insurance, tenant referencing, tenancy agreements and more: Services and Products for Landlords
For general info on our SEMINARS AND CONSULTING click here: Property Seminars, Networking Evenings and Consulting
TO READ CLIENT TESTIMONIALS – both commercial and private click here: Testimonials
BUY “SUCCESSFUL PROPERTY LETTING” click here: Buy the Book at Amazon plus anything else you fancy at Amazon.co.uk
To JOIN our Free QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER simply send an email to [email protected] - Please note we WILL NOT send spam or sell our mailing list to advertisers!
IF YOU HAVE A SITE WHY NOT LINK TO THIS BLOG OR TO OUR WEBSITE?
IF YOU SELL SERVICES TO LANDLORDS, YOU COULD BE A PARTNER ON OUR AFFILIATE PROGRAMME. PLEASE GET IN TOUCH!
See our Twitter page: http://twitter.com/LettingFocus
Copyright of Blog: David Lawrenson 2009.
TO VIEW RELATED POSTS select a “Category” at the bottom of this page.
Those forecasts I made don’t allow for any really crazy stuff that may happen – like the UK deciding to waste more money (and sadly more lives) in yet more unwinnable wars, a terrible pandemic or an earthquake leveling some major financial centre or other.
Or indeed, the so called “Masters of The Universe” in their red braces up in the square mile could come up with some other daft financial instrument that no one, not even their own bosses and certainly no financial journalist either knows about or understands – which leads to another economic meltdown.
Stuff like that is hard to quantify, allow for or to take account of in one’s calculations mainly because the probability (of it happening) is so hard to predict.
Personal Finance and Journalism
Talking about predictions, one of the curious things in 2007-8 was the fact that so few financial journalists saw the credit crunch coming.
Hardly any of them had an understanding of how the financial alchemy being practiced in the city (the CDOs and the like) worked and how it could end up hurting all of us so much.
You cannot blame them too much for this though.
As I have said before, it was pretty obvious that tne directors of the banks did not have a clue either.
The FT was better than most though at seeing that something was amiss and I am very indebted to whomever at the FT wrote that it would be best to pass up on the Royal Bank of Scotland’s ludicrous rights issue at 200 pence a share (now the subject of legal action against directors).
Thanks FT.
Thanks to you, I passed up on that rights issue and have you to thank when RBS sold my rights at 227 pence - a profit of 27 pence a share.
When it comes to personal finance investments I highly rate the commentary of John Authurs and Mathew Vincent (both at the FT), David Smith (Sunday Times), Nick Hasell (Times) and David Kuo (Motely Fool).
Many other commentators leave a lot to be desired.
Property Experts
And what about the property experts?
I have to say that when it comes to property predictions over the years I have noticed that there are some regular journalist-commentators who are always more right than wrong and whose analysis of the true situation in the residential property market is first class.
They are David Smith again (of the Sunday Times), Claer Barratt (of the FT and Investors Chronicle), Anne Ashworth (Times), Jeremy Gates (PA) and Michael O Flynn (FindaProperty.com).
There are some other good people too - but these are the regular writers whose work I most admire.
Many other writers, I’m afraid, are often terribly wide of the mark with one “quality paper” in particular always hopelessly wrong about property. (Sorry, cannot name them in case they read this and get mad at me.)
Non journos who also understand the market well are Ray Boulger, anyone at Savills and Knight Frank and Stuart Law of Assetz.
In the professional landlord magazine / website arena you will know that I greatly admire Tom Entwistle (of Landlord Zone) and Richard Bowser (of Property Investor News)
Listen to all these experts and journos for your tips and you won’t go too far wrong.
Here We Go Again
More snow is expected today and we will no doubt see the usual hopeless response as some City Hall staff and schools up and down the land take the opportunity for yet another day off. (Is it me but do kids get more days off anyway for holidays than when I was a nipper?)
Last year our brilliant Mayor of London walked off from a grilling when someone suggested that perhaps it might have been a bright idea to have the gritting and snow plough people staying somewhere close to their vehicles ready to work overnight as soon as last years' snow started.
They weren’t and so the whole of London ground to a halt for 2 days.
Pathetic!
MORE ABOUT LETTINGFOCUS AND WHAT WE DO
LettingFocus.com is the home of landlord information.
Hello, I’m David Lawrenson.
I have been a landlord and property investor myself for over 25 years and am author of “Successful Property Letting” – which has been the UK’s top selling property and buy to let book for the last 3 years.
At LettingFocus.com, we help landlords and property investors make money in property by coaching them in ways that work, which are ethical and which involve minimal risk to the investor.
We pride ourselves on giving independent unbiased buy to let advice on either a one to one mentoring / coaching basis or through our occasional group seminars.
Unfortunately, in the UK today, property advice in the UK is still largely unregulated and what counts as “good advice” is too often more about making the promoter money than giving useful information to the investor.
With no links to property firms, developers or bridging loan providers we can advise on where and what type of property to buy for investment and when to buy it. We also show you how to manage tenants properly.
At a corporate level, we also provide consultancy for banks, local authorities and social housing providers – helping them with their landlord facing or buy to let product strategies. We also write for property websites and are regularly quoted by the media.
We have written articles for numerous publications including The Independent, The Telegraph and quality landlord websites.
AT OUR WEBSITE LETTINGFOCUS.COM:
THE HOME PAGE OF THIS BLOG click here: Blog
THE HOME PAGE OF OUR MAIN SITE click here: LettingFocus Home Page
ONE TO ONE PRIVATE CONSULTANCY click here: Property Mentoring
NEXT SEMINAR AND NETWORKING EVENT for Landlords and Property Investors:
Next Property Investment Seminar and Networking Event
We have OFFERS on a range of services and products for landlords too; click here including landlords insurance, tenant referencing, tenancy agreements and more: Services and Products for Landlords
For general info on our SEMINARS AND CONSULTING click here: Property Seminars, Networking Evenings and Consulting
TO READ CLIENT TESTIMONIALS – both commercial and private click here: Testimonials
BUY “SUCCESSFUL PROPERTY LETTING” click here: Buy the Book at Amazon plus anything else you fancy at Amazon.co.uk
To JOIN our Free QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER simply send an email to [email protected] - Please note we WILL NOT send spam or sell our mailing list to advertisers!
IF YOU HAVE A SITE WHY NOT LINK TO THIS BLOG OR TO OUR WEBSITE?
IF YOU SELL SERVICES TO LANDLORDS, YOU COULD BE A PARTNER ON OUR AFFILIATE PROGRAMME. PLEASE GET IN TOUCH!
See our Twitter page: http://twitter.com/LettingFocus
Copyright of Blog: David Lawrenson 2009.
TO VIEW RELATED POSTS select a “Category” at the bottom of this page.
Labels: house price forecasts, House price outlook, property comment, property commentators, property journalsits
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