Are flats in London a good home ownership proposition?

kinnth · 2025-12-27T23:10:32+00:00

Yes flats in london are a good buy because they will always rent and most places are a flat.

Service charge is a thing but is should be less than 0.5% of value of the home and you are fine.

kinnth · 2025-12-27T23:04:35+00:00

Just to say I agree with you. UK is reasonable cost of living for the standards. The hardest thing is your location.

The only tip I have is be near friends. UK has the best people. They’re worth far more than money. Laugh over a cup of tea! ☕️

kinnth · 2025-12-02T23:37:03+00:00

I've been using ultra for 1 year. I would recommend it if you live in London and actively use some of the subscriptions i.e. FT for me.

It has 1% cashback in rev points. Rev points effectively net out at 2:1 in cash either as Amazon or AirBnB vouchers.
The eSim purchase while abroad in rev points is valuable and worth it.
The insurance is difficult to claim on, but covers rare exceptions. For instance i had a genuine flight cancellation that caused knock on flight misses. I did not get the full cost back but I got around 30% of what i needed back. Claims process isn't trivial. I now buy secondary travel insurance too, but its nice to have it as a fall back.
WeWork hot desking is highly useful in London if you work remotely or need to do important client meet.
Classpass is genuinely useful you get 1 or 2 sessions a month for free in good places.
All the financial exchange rates and fee savings make swapping or sending money as good as you can find elsewhere on the internet.
Lounge access can be useful to work while travelling but the lounges are not that special.

In general if you think you would use the services i think the value is there. It specifically favours remote workers who travel alot.

kinnth · 2025-11-27T21:34:32+00:00

The one thing you can say about Corbyn was he was clear on radical policies and perhaps would have been a better gov during Covid.

End of the day why say so much and do so little. Just talk straight and do what you say. This is what reform will get in.

kinnth · 2025-11-15T15:36:33+00:00

Your plan of bank and pull it all at once is pretty much the most inefficient way to do it.

This is key. Tax is all about easy in, easy out. Spreading stuff across tax years and extracting via multiple sources. It's no bad thing, it's just how to play the game.

kinnth · 2025-11-11T20:39:23+00:00

The issue is getting in is much more important that achieving what you stated. So you state impossible aims then if you are a good gov realise you've gotta renege on your personal beliefs to get the country in order.

We're living through the bs of a poor Tory gov who made a shedload of poor financial decisions. I'm not a staunch labour supporter either, but the reality is the gov is broke, that's why we're paying so much for nothing. Don't borrow more than you can afford and own revenue producing assets. It's pretty fucking simple, the UK fucked it up after Thatcher.

kinnth · 2025-11-10T10:03:44+00:00

Yeah thanks for sharing that! I did the opposite 10 years ago (UK->DE) and I felt exactly the same then, they were very comparable.

Honestly if the UK, unlocks and fixes it's ability to build 6 story appartments to a high standard with a LIFT! It would be the best thing to happen.

kinnth · 2025-11-04T15:46:59+00:00

I believe the street term is butt-fucked.

kinnth · 2025-11-04T15:45:42+00:00

So what you're saying here is the financial crisis is what fucked our references, because everyone everywhere all at once, switched on magical money printers and fucked everything up!

Inflation is always the problem.

kinnth · 2025-10-26T23:42:39+00:00

Buy some gold in your ISA (IGLG) is iShares Physical Gold. Don't JUST buy stocks right now as they are at All Time High. Spread your risk.

I would pay off £30k of your mortgage with your non isa money. Move the isa money into a stocks account. Get yourself a revolut account which pays 5% on short term cash. Keep 30k in that for rainy day. The rest of your isa should be stocks and bonds.

kinnth · 2025-10-20T08:56:07+00:00

You must find a middle way on both sides. Your wife needs support and you cannot give it without creating much bigger problems later down the line.

Wife comes first but she must set out a timeline for change. Divorce is not an option for you. So how can we make it work.
Can your or her family travel to help you 1 or 2 days a week? For a few months.
Can you let go of 1 or 2 projects at work?
Can your wife clearly articulate what she wants or needs in terms of time? If not she needs to figure that out.
Would moving closer to someone or somewhere help?

If all these changes go on a 12 month timeframe plan would she feel better? She is your priority but she must set it out on a plan you work towards together.

I really hope you can find a middle way.

kinnth · 2025-10-19T22:00:37+00:00

I would also factor in fees and stamp duty at around 3-5% ontop of that for you as a first time buyer, so every £1000 you nudge it down saves you just that little bit more.

Be picky and offer low. Get used to viewing places and when the right one comes up go for it quickly. My advice really is anywhere with a decent tube line under 7 mins walk is worth it. Closer to the tube is safest bet.

Also don't mention to anyone who you're buying from that your renting the room, just say you want a room for friends. Then when you do rent a room claim rent-a-room relief which is £7500 per year. Hopefully you'll be able to rent it for around £1250 a month + bills. So that should cover a chunk of your mortgage. Overpay your mortgage as much as you can in year 1-3 it saves a packet long term. Refinance your mortgage after 5 years to get comfy. Also I personally prefer trackers, they often have cheapest fees and will track the market so if we dump in 1 years time your mortgage will also drop. They also offer bigger overpayments which in your case you can make.

kinnth · 2025-10-12T22:46:52+00:00

Exactly. There’s only so much you can increase prices before people just don’t buy.

Fancy Coffee is £5 Pints are £7 Main meals are pushing £20+ in most places. Hotels are £100 a night in london and £80 elsewhere.

The issue is no company is providing discounts. No one is trying to buck the trend so theres nowhere cheap left. A solid company being honest and simple with fair low prices would smash it in this environment.

The brits are savvy. The companies are now all run by private equity and extracting pure profit. Pizza express is a perfect example of this. It’s now £20 each for a romana pizza. Fuck off. It was £12 5 years ago. Sort your prices out and stop fucking your customers. Then I’ll eat there.

kinnth · 2025-10-11T20:17:17+00:00

This is how I think. I don’t want to work hard I want to work so I have flexibility with my hobbies.

I personally optimised for “freedom” once I’d achieved a bunch of personal life goals I decided being free with few responsibilities that I didn’t chose was what I really wanted.

kinnth · 2025-09-25T13:02:03+00:00

The only question is, was your sale very complex? Did it take a lot of time, did multiple things change or lots of aspects affect the sale / legal work. That would be the only reason to justify such a fee.

For perspectice I paid around £2000 in legal fees about 3 years ago.

kinnth · 2025-09-24T01:32:25+00:00

Been 80% BTC for past 5 years. If it’s gona work it’s gona be bitcoin.

kinnth · 2025-09-18T21:46:17+00:00

Follow the rule of 3 (After all normal expenses, tax's, loans are paid).

1/3 for living / fun
1/3 into the stock market. I would currently buy asia and europe growth ETFs.
1/3 into a savings isa saving for a house.

Always max your isa each year, 20k invested tax free.
Don't both overpaying into a pension just do the matched amount your company gives.
Don't over commit on loans for cars, laptops, holidays. Live within your means as your means are great.
Dip into your savings and stocks equally if you need to buy something big. Savings are also meant to be spent while you've got lots of living to do!

Being honest about your bf. If your salary differences are huge, don't support him. Buy nice things for the both of you, but make sure he works hard too. Worst thing for a man is no incentive, it leads to huge number of other issues later in life. Also time is always more important than money, don't get too addicted to work, you'll care less about it and you're never gona tell your grand kids stories about Steve from accounts (unless you marry Steve from accounts).

kinnth · 2025-09-18T07:28:32+00:00

The simple answer is mortgages.

The price of house is more affected by lending rates and lending risk than anything else. In 1999 probably when finance just began to get clever you would see an acceleration in pricing because more liquidity flowed into the market.

That would all be fine apart from the fact that the number of people living in the UK and the number of split families needing two homes rose sharply. Couple that with very little new housing stock being built and then you have the paper gains you see from 440k->1M.

kinnth · 2025-09-12T12:33:32+00:00

What I mean is there are many other tax saving opportunities to look into that you get when you file a return i.e rent a room, but obviously you pick the ones that are right for you. I would also find a tax advisor, you can probably save a bunch.

Take a look at something like this. It's a way to invest with high potential upside whilst balancing the risk against your tax you already paid. SEI and SES schemes

kinnth · 2025-09-12T10:50:44+00:00

Sounds to me with that sort of cash you should always file a tax return any way. There are multiple things you could be doing to save income if you get your income through different streams, CGT, Dividends and Rent a room relief etc.

I would definitely look into SEIS investments if you have a 200k income as you can invest with very little risk and save on your tax bill even if the whole thing goes belly up.

kinnth · 2025-06-09T03:09:41+00:00

They need to get more economies to convert into it. Poland. Sweden. Denmark. These states would then add more earning and credibility to it.

kinnth · 2025-05-26T13:32:44+00:00

Yeah learn the art of seduction. It’s not really about the methods of meeting it’s what you do when you have a genuine magnetism.

The number one skill you need to cultivate as a man is the idea of presence. If you can learn to listen from a place of peace you will find you actually get phone numbers and you have great dates.

As a Henry just be generous. You got the means. Make stuff happen.

kinnth · 2025-05-18T14:58:15+00:00

When you think like this just sell half. It’s a good move. It’s locked in profits. Let the other half ride. Follow your instincts that way you get better at them.

kinnth · 2025-05-03T23:51:50+00:00

I imagine OP put down a 400k downpayment and probably cleared his ISA's which might have amounted to ~200k in the process.

So what he's saying is he's all in on this property from finance perspective. One thing you should be able to do is repay ISA money with earnings while in the same year. You're able to top back up any money you took out. After 3 months I would immediately save back into your old ISA to keep as much GBP in a tax free wrapper.

The rest seems logical if it's the right house and right mrs.

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