Thursday 13 January 2011

Only fools and horses work

In seven short years the average price of a house in Peterborough increased by over one hundred thousand pounds.

Imagine that for a moment. You buy a house in 2000, sit back and watch it add £15,000 a year to your wealth. Why would you ever want to work when you can own a house that will take care of the messy business of securing an income stream?

Personally, I can't give you a good answer to that question. The best I can do is suggest that for the country as a whole something is a amiss.

I have this naive idea that a country's greatness can only be built on hard work and industry. It is a foolish and outdated idea. In fact, it was probably unfashionable long before I was even born.

When this idea of diligence and honest effort is contrasted with the Peterborough housing market, there is no contest. Speculation wins out by a mile.

As Del boy might say, hard work is only for fools and horses.

5 comments:

LEA said...

I don't think Delboy or Rodney were ever btl landlords. Do you them a wrong Alice.

Anonymous said...

Total naivity on your part Alice.

Anonymous said...

Living not too far from Peterborough at present.

What prices are these?
This is an area where asking prices can be very different from price actually paid. In the early nineties: 65% was not unknown.

Price is what you pay, value is what you get!
Peterborough grew ten fold in ten years by putting up a lot of crap housing rather too quickly.

A place to live, tenants you actually want?
Like some other cities it has attracted a surge of socially problematic immigrants (amidst other immigrant groups who are really great).

As markets surge you have to get in irrespective of quality. As markets wane ... low quality moves slowly unless very cheap.

Probably not the best place to jump in with both feet; just now.

There are good things about Peterborough ... mostly the rail links that allow you to escape from it.

London Estate Agent said...

That is a helluva crash and recovery. It looks like Peterborough recovered faster than the UK average.

Manila real estate said...

This is a naive prospectous of some people in real estate business. We might find new generalizations about the foolishness effort of some people that only knows money to send in their pockets.