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Safety In Numbers

07.12.2009

By Martin Skinner The debate over our recovery from recession continues to rage and provides an amazing insight into the different ways economic facts and figures can be interpreted.  Forecasting is a tough game these days and I will simply express my opinion that we are experiencing a recovery more akin to a craggy[rock]-V than [...]

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Dubai – gets that sinking feeling

30.11.2009

By Martin Skinner Building expensive villas on man-made islands with little protection from erosion always seemed pretty bonkers to me.  Brilliantly bonkers.  Was Dubai’s economic miracle nothing more than a mirage?  Or is an unfortunate victim of an unprecedented global financial crisis. Dubai’s brash and ‘blinging’ approach has been pretty uncoordinated and in the past [...]

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Mortgage lending rates increased – are the banks having a laugh?

23.11.2009

By Martin Skinner Yesterdays Sunday Times money section details a number of margin increases on mortgages by UK banks; mostly the government backed ones.  Cheltenham & Gloucester (Lloyds owned) has increased its tracker rate for its 90% LTV product to 5.49% over base – 5.99% at present. I’m an interest rate ‘dove’ meaning I believe interest [...]

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UK Property – Residential vs Commercial

17.11.2009

By Martin Skinner My last two blogs discussed what I believe to be understandable but over-stated concerns of a double-dip in the UK economy in 2010. This week I’m going to dig into the reasons behind the recent out-performance of residential property as compared with commercial property and would love get some feedback from readers. [...]

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Rose tinted spectacles or optimism returning?

11.11.2009

By Martin Skinner I’d been building up to my blog last week on the assumption that more Quantitative Easing would be implemented and support for the banks would be effectively unlimited.  With these now in place it seems to me unlikely that we will suffer the severe double-dip that many are worrying about.  As last [...]

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UK Property – Are we really doomed to a double-dip?

06.11.2009

By Martin Skinner After a rebound in property values and a surge in listed property equities in the spring/summer much of the early autumn discussion has been around the risk of renewed downward pressure on values in 2010.  Is this just irrational pessimism or is it a real probability? I will focus my discussion on [...]

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One step back two steps forward

01.11.2009

The Bank of England will this week be deciding on the quantitative easing commitment for the next three months. Despite in all likelihood treating the unexpectedly awful GDP result for Q3 with cautious scepticism the bank is likely to be more aggressive with its digital money injection (hopefully £30bn+) than if the figures reported had [...]

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The economist is dead, long live the economists !

01.11.2009

I’m going to start with a few long words so I sound like I REALLY know all about economics and then you can tell me how impressed you are … ok, ready?  Go!     Traditional economic forecasts and econometric models said it couldn’t happen.  But it did happen and it might happen again.  … as [...]

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Tweets ahead (or not as the case may be)

30.10.2009

I’m a huge fan of Property Week and read it religiously every week.  Excellent journalists, great leader and all round best-of-breed publication – it ranks alongside the Sunday Times for me as one of the only two papers I read every week. … so please consider this constructive criticism and of the broader, corporate, industry [...]

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News Review: MP Wife Swaps

25.10.2009

MP Wife Swaps Some 200 MP’s affected by the ban on employing their wives are considering defying the ruling by employing each others’ wives.  Eve Burt said “We have had the conversation about swapping jobs endlessly, they are water-cooler conversations.  It would be an option.  We did work out a very complicated ‘giant wife swap’ [...]

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