Canterbury - 28th July, 2007

OK so now the market has most probably topped out. All the gains of the last six months are wiped out. There is the possibility of one final burst upwards but don't count on it. Get out now and short the market or buy oil futures. $100 per barrel is on the way. Good luck.

Canterbury - 27th May, 2007

We have moved. The purchase of our 7th property in Canterbury has seen us finally moving into a house which will allow us all a bit of space. Even though we have 11 people (actually there were 2 other "unauthorised" visitors last night - making it 13) living in the house at the moment we will eventually settle on about 4 or 5 guests and have a room of our own each, something we have never had before.

The house is on the other side of town from where we were in Cowdrey Place but very close to most of our other rentals so very convenient from that point of view. It has added about 10 minutes to our school run journey but it has the benefit of the only cycle path in Canterbury at the end of the garden. It takes you straight into Canterbury city. Perfect for boys.

We have been worked off our feet in the last month. What with the move and working almost full time invigilating for all the exams that are on at the moment. The house at Cowdrey Place was rented from the day we left so it had to been made immaculate before we left. We are using it as a serviced apartment until July when it is then rented for a year to students. Then we moved into the new house with the electricians pulling up the floor boards and new guests arriving. We took our 2 chinese boys with us from Cowdrey and have since acquired 2 chinese girls (on half term from a local boarding school), a member of the cast of Starlight Express, who are in town for 3 weeks, James, our PGCE student who has come back for a week and Craig, an English Teacher who is also a long term customer. The family gets bigger.

Julie has handed in her notice and will leave her job at the end of June. She finally gave up with the ineptitude of the organisation and decided she could no longer be part of the shambles. She will miss the refugees and the mentors that she has nurtured but it can no longer be. She will do more work for our property business instead. She only needs to generate an extra week and a half of rentals to cover her salary.

The business is going well. We have a good number of advance bookings and have had a couple of really good long term executive business rentals, one of which has lasted since lastNovember.
We have also taken on a property for a friend to rent for holiday lets in the summer and to rent to students from September. We still do not generate sufficient income from the 7 properties to cover our living expenses. I estimate that we need at least 9 to do that but I think we have done well to get 7 on the road in 13 months. Not sure how we keep going at that rate. Our funds are virtually used now so we have to wait until some of the properties have sufficient equity in them to pull some out for the next deposit.

Now to the stock market: we are waiting for the moment. China is about to crash. Never in financial history has a market risen so audaciously since the South Sea Bubble in 1720. When it falls we will all suffer the consequences just as we shook when China sneezed in late February. If you sell your shares now, cash in any endowment policies and move any pension investments into cash you should be OK. Get ready to short.

You should see some photos of the new house below.

The 35 foot long attic room. It is a proper loft conversion with stairs and windows either end. All the junk you can see belongs to the people selling the house. When we moved in it had all been removed. Due to some overbooking by me (Richard) we have found ourselves (the 4 of us) sleeping in this room. We currently have 7 guests in the house in the 5 bedrooms on the first floor.

The house from the front. Note the lovely non-descipt '70s styling and the double car garage (possible extra 3 letting rooms!!).

The house from the garden. Lovely 1970s non-descript but a good size garden.

The view from our bedrooms looking over our garden and the Kings School playing fields over the fence.

Canterbury - 6th March, 2007

See, see, see, I told you so. Now you might just listen in future!

I first started talking about this over a year ago, so you should have had time to prepare. My little trick was to have some short positions riding on the downward movement. The gains I made on this were impressive and have recouped all my investments to date.

But folks the never ending bull market just ended. There may not be such drastic falls as last week but the trend now is downward for at least the next 3 years. Some pundits are even predicting a 1930s US style depression. Ride it down if you can. Keep your pensions and investments out of the market. Buy government bonds or savings certificates or even a property or 2. Meanwhile, try not to let them rip that shirt off your back. We are in for a rocky ride.

Christmas Message 2006

Our second Christmas in Canterbury arrives with much to report about our first full year in this lovely corner of Kent. Although at times it seems that we have made little progress, physically we have achieved an enormous amount. We have purchased and put into service 6 properties which now form the basis of an income producing business for us. We have sold our London properties and moved everything (including old motorbikes and an attic full of stuff) down to our now permanent place of residence. Where the feeling of “little progress” is apparent is in our own living circumstances and spiritual welfare. We are still living in a half decorated 1960s box house (with a lovely flat roof – no attic space!) which has 3 bedrooms and now has 8 full time residents including us. You work out the maths. Actually to be fair we have just completed the conversion of the garage into a fourth bedroom which makes it a little more bearable. However, living like this has been challenging and without the close support network that fed our spirits in Ealing, it has at times been hard going.

The boys have been great. Having had a year travelling and now a year living in conditions that are not much different to a caravan/boat/airport or RV, they seem not to be too disturbed by our lack of facilities and home comforts. Their school has been the constant factor for them (in fact for all of us – since it is why we are here) bringing a sense of rhythm and focus. Driving them out to the school in the middle of beautiful Kent farmlands everyday and watching them prosper has been a joy. We simply cannot overstate how much better Steiner Waldorf education is for them. What is apparent is that we are the only parents we know who have nothing but praise for their children’s school and the system of education they are using. Just imagine “no SATS” and no “league tables”. There is so much not right about our state system ...... and we thought it was “education, education, education”.

Julie has been far more involved in the school in the last 6 months and has made a big impact. Apart from the standard of baking improving immensely, the parents organisation has been inspired. Julie became the Chair of the parent contacts (parents committee). As a result, this year’s advent bazaar (the main fundraiser of the year) broke all records in generating funds for the school. Julie’s class stall produced over double the income of last year’s. More importantly the organisation of the event was well prepared and completed with far less stress than before. Everyone agreed that she had been instrumental in this process. The school will never be the same again.

So the whole school / life thing is beginning to work well and this keeps us going when we look around at our primitive physical environment at home.

In addition to “running the school”, Julie is also working at her job. Billed as a “part time” job (what it really means is part time money for full time work) it has turned into a major undertaking. Her partner has been ill off work for some time and she has been doing at least 2 people’s work. The organisation for whom she works (Kent Refugee Action Network) has had it’s problems too, which has distracted from the work to be done and caused additional levels of stress.

In addition to the school and the job, Julie has also been looking after 8 people at home (have we ever been left hungry? – like heck), 6 properties (we are now up to managing 32 beds – just imagine the laundry – up to 5 loads a day) and church activities, like selling Christmas cards to support church members in Uganda.

We have also managed to receive some visitors this year which has been a real blessing and joy. It is clear how important our friends and family are to us. Thank you for being there.

For my own part, I have been responsible for the buying of the properties and much of the day to day running of the business. I have discovered the joys and sorrows of ironing, toilet cleaning, decorating, waiting for clients to arrive and working for the best part on my own. Probably one of the main reasons small businesses fail is the fact that working by yourself can be a tedious and sole destroying task. It saps your drive and tests your determination. If you are not a “loner” you are in for testing time. I hate it. Working by myself does not sit well with me. Julie tries to come with me to the flats as much as possible (when she does we always seems to get more than twice as much done) but of course her time is limited.

To alleviate the pain, I have taken a greater interest in stock market trading and now spend a couple of hours a day “fiddling” (as Julie calls it). I have not had very impressive results this year (have you ever met a rich day trader?) but more lately I am following several disciplined approaches (discipline is essential) that look more likely to be profitable. My own view, which I have been spouting for a year now, is that the markets (housing, equities, commodities) are scheduled to experience a significant correction (downward). I am trying to prepare for this and position myself to take advantage of it. Remember house, share and commodity prices can go down as well as up and never invest more than you can afford to loose!

News from our families includes: my sister Suzanne and her husband Rob have decided that old Blightly is not for them and are flying off to Auz (envy and sadness but joy for them) , my brother Tony and his wife Carolyn have become grand parents (my niece Lauren became a mother to Weslie this summer), my mother has been suffering a number of ailments including something called “transient amnesia” which means she sometimes doesn’t know what she just did but she has been well looked after by her husband Paul. Julie’s Mum and Dad have had some health issues this year but on the whole seem well disposed. Oh and we acquired 2 new members of the family; Sneezer and Cheeseburger the boys pet rats.

We are all looking forward to a more stable year next year and one that is perhaps run at a more dignified pace (I am still trying to teach Julie to say “no” to new jobs). I do hope that we may see you in the New Year and that this season meets you with joy and celebration for the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Links:
www.canterburyservicedapartments.co.uk

Canterbury - 13th January, 2007

Happy New Year to all.

Our year has started with a bang. Enquiries for rentals are coming in all the time now. Before Christmas it was dead. Now we are up and running again. We are taking bookings for the summer and as far ahead as September. We have had some great long term bookings of 6 weeks or more. We are also getting corporate bookings which are really good as they tend to be at top dollar.

I have also just rented our student house out for the academic year 2007-2008. Students who are in halls of residence for their first year start looking for their second year' s accommodation in January and all the houses are booked by the end of January. We got a good group of 6 girls for the student accommodation and a load more enquiries. Julie suggested we got one of these other groups to come and look at our house, where we are living. Even though it is in a state, they loved it and it is now booked for the next academic year as well! So we have to move again. Oh yes please.

Good thing that we found a house already. Just a few days ago I think we found the largest house in Canterbury that we have ever seen which is at a price we could afford. OK it is 1970s horrible but it has 5 bedrooms and 35 foot long attic room with proper stairs going up to it, a master bedroom with a huge en-suite bathroom (just imagine how much we will be able to rent that out for - and you thought we might take it for ourselves - pah). It also has 2 internal garages (I'm thinking 2 more bedrooms or a swanky granny annex) and off street parking for at least 6 cars. Our offer has been accepted but there is work to do on our house (we are having the front garden converted into hard standing for parking at the moment) with a new kitchen and wiring and re-decoration and there is lots of work to do in the new house: 3 new bathrooms, 2 new kitchens and a redesign of the ground floor to create that King Edwards Gardens kitchen/diner that we hanker after.

At home we have just had 2 Perivian girls move in who are staying for 5 weeks on an english course (it is their summer holidays now) and a german boy who is on a 3 month exchange at the boys school. We also have our long term PGCE student so now we are back up to our normal compliment of 4 lodgers. They completely pay for the mortgage and council tax. We live for free.

Julie and I are doing a little invigilating at the moment as our school is doing the A/S level re-sits. Looks to me like most of them are sitting them again but at least the papers looked as if some work might have had to have been done in order to complete them.

Julie is working like stink. Most not doing her job (finding and matching mentors with refugees who need help) but farting about with the organisation of the enterprise that is supposed to support her. The lottery funded charitable quango would survive for about 30 nano seconds in the real world but it is run by hopeless incompetents who really couldn't organise a ...... Just imagine how this saps her. She is ready to leave, if it weren't for the refugees.

The boys are back in school. Sammy comes home every day covered from head to toe in mud. I suppose it's better than being stuck inside. Julian has made friends with a really nice boy and is pushing out towards teenagerdom with interest. He thought the other day that he would like to go to university. Don't know where he got that from!

Christmas was quite interesting. We had 17 for lunch. Our chinese girls stayed with us and we great fun and mucked in with everything. We had Rob and Suzanne (my sister and her husband and 2 boys) who are about to leave us for Australia - oh thanks alot guys. They are emigrating like. I guess it means that we will have to go and visit at some stage. We never got to Australia on our trip so going there will be an adventure.