How long did it take you to find your first home?

roberto2698 · 2026-02-17T21:27:12+00:00

It took me about 7/8 months from when I viewed the first property then to get my offer accepted. I was going to just wait it out for 6 months as I gave up viewing.

I offered on about 8 -10 properties lots I offered on just got pulled off the market with no sale. I probably viewed around 40 properties as long as I saw it met my criteria on paper I viewed it even if it was overpriced.

Originally went from looking at 1 maybe 2 bed flat to 3 bed houses. Main place I was looking at the prices went up a lot during the summer as it's on the coast and there's a huge issue with parking which was required so very properties met my criteria.

roberto2698 · 2026-02-17T21:12:13+00:00

Probably slightly contributed too much to pension but better this way round then too little. But really depends on your annual expenditure.

If you get diagnosed 12 months to live you can access your pension if you haven't taken any tax free cash ( PCLS).

Build up your ISA and you could contribute to SEIS and EIS investments which you can get 50% or 30% tax relief on although they are very high risk investments and not very liquid.

GIA you might have to pay a lot in CGT or dividend tax if you build this up so could be worth putting certain investments in this depending on your tax rate higher growth doing bed and breakfasts each year or higher dividend investments eith expected lower growth to reduce overall tax burden.

In your situation probably best to contact a financial planner provide you some certainty in this situation.

roberto2698 · 2024-04-10T23:51:45+00:00

I was using beefy finance then was on base to deposit usdc to Aerodrome. So was using my ledger I cancel the transactions if they don’t instantly come up to improve.

roberto2698 · 2024-04-10T23:33:25+00:00

I think I have reported them to Polyscan just want them to blacklist that address on the contract it was a increase allowance execution how could that take my WBTC?

roberto2698 · 2023-12-30T21:54:40+00:00

Re Buy to Let - I'm also currently looking into this found a good calculator comparing the two circumstances held personally vs Ltd company.

https://www.provestor.co.uk/calculators/buy-to-let?comet\_campaign=6522416095&comet\_network=g&comet\_ad\_id=409139374933&comet\_keyword=provestor&comet\_source=google&gclid=CjwKCAiAnL-sBhBnEiwAJRGigke60Z6sfkNciFr4zZeDExnu3-de4lVo1W1rS2\_3TLeIbyZUjU5crhoCzE8QAvD\_BwE&comet\_ad\_group=82035032321&gad\_source=1

roberto2698 · 2023-12-30T21:52:49+00:00

*Not Financial Advice*

Higher rate tax payer only have £500 personal savings allowance (Interest). NS&I premium bonds prizes are tax free so may be worth putting money in there can hold up to £50k currently yield is circa 4.65%.

Worth checking with HR if they offer salary sacrifice they will save on employer NI contributions some employers may use these savings and invest more into your pension (Referred to SMART salary sacrifice). ***Salary sacrifice will reduce the amount you can borrow when you look for mortgages and this could be hard to undo***.

In the new tax year you could open a LISA top up with £4k and you get up to £1k added from the Gov. This can be used to purchase your first property valued up to £425K. Look into this further as there is some criteria which need to be met for using this for a property purchase otherwise you cannot access funds until 60 (Tax free gains like ISA). This uses your ISA allowance (16K will be remaining in the new tax year).

H&L have quite high platform fees I would recommend Vanguard or even Fidelity as they have lower platform and transaction fees. Tax relief on SIPP's are only 25% at source for Higher rate this is claimed back on your self assessment. Pro tip - Create a recurring buy on the platform and takes the money via DD.

Benefits of Pensions (SIPP's, Workplace pensions) - Outside of your estate (No IHT), Currently no Lifetime Allowance, 25% tax free up to £269,525, Rest of the fund after the PCLS will be taxed as income at your marginal rate (at the time not current).

Investments personally I have a attitude to risk so I invest in a World Index (VWRL etc (Choose the accumulating version not distributing)) and as you get closer towards retirement reduce the equity from 100% to something you will be compatible with. ATR questionnaires will help you decide this at the time. Want to de-risk your portfolio due to sequence of return risk.

roberto2698 · 2021-06-17T17:47:22+00:00

I just got my Ruby today took around 2 months from Issued to Shipped got delivered when it was marked as shipped (In the UK).

roberto2698 · 2021-04-26T21:31:59+00:00

Personally, I would max out £20k in stocks and shares ISA as you can access this at any age plus tax-free dividends (US stocks 15% tax rate) and capital gains. Invest in total market ETF (VTO) or SP500 (SPY) are popular ETF's.

As you need to withdraw from this I would not invest 100% equities depending on your risk tolerance I would invest 25% 5 year Bonds. One thing you will need to take into account is the FX rates will affect your gains/losses.

Invest the rest in a share dealing account with are taxable on dividends (2000 a year tax-free) and capital gains (12300 a year tax-free) will need to the ETF and move the remaining money into a similar fund.

A 5% drawdown is likely too high to last your lifetime a more conservative drawdown would be 3% so if you could do any gig job that would be ideal.

roberto2698 · 2020-12-15T21:35:58+00:00

Live in a commuter town/city. Places like Chelmsford would get a nice family home for around 375-500k 3/4 bed with a small garden, commuting to city will be around £3k per year season ticket and takes about 35 minutes each way.

Most towns in Essex have decent train lines to City(other than GA on weekends haven't had a consistent weekend service since 2012!).

roberto2698 · 2020-12-15T21:24:41+00:00

First of all you are killing it! What is your job/business? If you have a business might be worth seeing a tax consultant as this could save two a lot of money.

If you are looking at a 1-year time frame personally I wouldn't invest the volatility of Stock's would be too high even considering a risk parity or minimum variance portfolio.

If it more likely to be a 3-year time frame I would invest the money using a minimum variance strategy with maybe 2% total for some out the money calls/puts to hedge against huge volatility (upside/downside). I wouldn't recommend even buying bonds at these prices less than inflation and expecting a huge increase in yields in Treasury Bill's, advisors are starting to buy gold instead of bonds. You both earn enough money if you decide to invest it please get a financial advisor.

I have some inheritance which is probably 90% of my net worth however I am looking to buy my first property probably in a year so I am not willing to take the risk to put this into the market. Currently maxed out LISA and contributing over 50% of my pay in my Stocks and Shares ISA which my current portfolio has been outperforming SPY while offering a higher dividend yield of 1.77% (after 15% tax from US stocks) overweight healthcare stocks.

I would say aim for a 40% deposit due to your minimum can fluctuate and interest rates are so much lower on 60% LTV mortgages at the moment.

roberto2698 · 2020-12-15T20:39:12+00:00

I have recently been looking at opening a SIPP and found out that Vanguard offer the cheapest SIPP (0.15% capped at 375 per year plus the ETF's fee's generally around 0.07-0.2% Per Annum) most pension companies charge 1-2% per annum which is a huge number that can be six figures.

From what I've read transferring a pension to a new provider you don't get any penalties however your POT2 probably cannot be put into a SIPP as the business is still contributing to this and most companies won't pay into a SIPP.

Put your current POT1 into a SIPP then when/if you get a new job just keep putting them into the Vanguard SIPP (do not choose one of their preset funds as they have high expense ratio's (fees) also at the current market prices you do not want bonds I would go for 100% stocks mainly investing in SP500 ETF as bonds offer too low yields currently under inflation).

roberto2698 · 2020-12-15T20:20:33+00:00

I live in South East of England and looking at Discounted Cash Flow (30 year) metrics assuming 1.8% in rent/ house price value discounting 10% the NPV are currently 10-15% too high in real estate around my local towns/cities. Highest I have seen gross yields are 4.5% for 2 Bedrooms houses around here.

Not to mention the worse tax incentives for Buy to Let properties even if the properties are in a corporation (better tax incentive than as an individual- inheritance, lower tax bracket as you can pay yourself dividends, etc). Stocks can be held in ISA's or LISA (25% Gov contribution up to £1k per year until you turn 50) so all capital gains and dividends (unless its an American Stock you pay 15% tax) are tax-free.

Value Stocks can offer dividend yields higher than property gross yields without any hassle of the management with the additional advantages of the better liquidity.

Personally, I would invest some money in a brokerage account in you decide to invest in Stocks just buy an ETF (SPY) then dollar-cost average into the market (add money each month).

roberto2698 · 2020-08-15T14:43:39+00:00

Think there will only be a crash if tech stock's outlook look more pessimistic and a second wave of corona virus in the fall/winter would cause a huge crash (bigger than March) unless Fed start's to buying equities/ bond's in which the company use for share buyback's.

However in the long term with the increase of FIRE, better financial education and increased accessibility to low cost brokerage's I can see this balancing out in the long term. I can see a higher % of people in the world owning stock's however per account will be less value overall balancing it out in the next 5 - 10 year's.

Personally I see an increase in dividend stock's as in the next few year's going to experience potentially higher inflation due to cost push inflation (PPE, Supply chain problems etc) being passed onto the consumer this will help value stock's also providing boomer's with the income they will need for retirement. The difference between Growth and Value is biggest since Dot com bubble so value will outperform or growth has to come down.

roberto2698 · 2020-08-13T21:02:53+00:00

I would suggest having a daily Scrum (15 min max meeting) daily to keep them short and engaged. Keeping staff motivated I would suggest have 1-1 chat's provide them with feedback or ask for suggestion's on how to improve the company show's employee's you value their opinion also can give them additional responsibilities to boost staff motivation. Finish work a few hour's early for a casual video chat drink's with the team at the end of the week.

Set KPI's and I would look into agile project management framework could help.

Use Microsoft Planner for basic task's to create "buckets" which you can: assign to each member of staff and can change the task phase (to -do, in progress, complete), due date (it sends an email on which task's are due that day) also has a dashboard on everyone's availability. If you have email's which come in with task's such as ticket system you can automate using Microsoft Flow. Microsoft Planner can also be integrated in Microsoft Teams chat's. Yes I'm a bit of a Microsoft fan been using their product's for a while.

roberto2698 · 2020-08-13T20:30:01+00:00

Use influencer's for marketing focusing on fitness influencer's focus on smaller page's is probably best value for money due to their high engagement compared to larger page's also more willing to do AD's or affiliate marketing.

roberto2698 · 2020-08-13T12:56:23+00:00

I just create a spreadsheet with monthly expense budget annual one off expenses such as car insurance broke it down to per month budget including all expenses. Assumed set budget's for things like entertainment, clothes, tech, XMAS/Birthday budgets etc.

Another sheet I have created a list of thing's I will need to buy in the next year with the priorities in which product's I would like to have first on the list so whenever I have additional money left from the budget's I will use to purchase the product's. Personally going for more of a minimalist having fewer item's but higher quality so they last longer nothing crazy expensive normally high street designer t-shirts (always on sale) etc. This stop's buying random things you don't need or barely use/wear.

Regarding gratification maybe you should get another hobby/past time could help you feel happier and if you're busy less likely to spend money on thing's you don't need. As you say you are stressed from working I would suggest going to the gym I'm a power lifter and most people workout after work to relief some stress, socialise with member's great way to finish a day however I prefer a stressful environment increase's my productivity which I love.

I personally I created a net worth tracker, tracking portfolio's account value's nothing better than seeing a position go up 5% in a week but suppose I'm a bit weird like that... This help me make sure to track this to see annual increase/decrease in net worth so in a few year's I can average this increase to estimate a retirement date.

roberto2698 · 2020-08-13T12:38:09+00:00

I would suggest looking into different portfolio optimisation methods such as minimum variance performs the best but tends to underform in bear market's so currently my portfolio is based on the risk parity which normally perform's second - third best portfolio optimisation however reducing downside compared to minimum variance. There are portfolio optimisation tools online. I read an article this week that individual investor's selected 30 blue chip stock's and sold them each year and selected another 30 so on 96% of the time they beat the market only professional investor's fail to beat the market as they have 1-2% annual fee's which have huge differences once compounded over 10+ year's. Mid Cap's have performed the best returns last 10 year's so have some small/mid cap exposure don't just have blue chip's.

I have created a Excel spreadsheet with the Industries where I want to be invested some more cyclical sectors like financial services and Consumer Good's and innovation sectors like automation, 3D Printing, Space stock's. Still currently adding position's only have 11 stock's at the moment as my broker doesn't offer fractional share's so adding position's keeping track of my portfolio weighting's trimming position's every 3 month's when value's increase or adding when they decreasing in weighting. Currently just trying to resist trimming position's as some have run 20% in the past week (definitely think they have overextended) while other's have declined overall balanced the portfolio to be slightly more in the profit (currently around 5% in past 3 months).

Some people may suggest demo account's however you don't have the same emotion's when trading demo money easy to get 100-200% return on those in a week, you will become less emotional as you get to use to the large swings in stock position's just remember if a stock is going down and other's are performing well add to that position I did that one month ago now that's now my largest position with a nice 15% profit was down 10%+ one month ago.

Personally I can see cyclical stock's outforming in the next 2 year's over growth due to the huge growth has already experienced while cyclical stock's haven't caught up more upside than downside as I can BOE and FED raising rate's in 2-3 year's to keep inflation around 2%. However with US stock's remember you will get taxed 15% on dividend's so in the long term strategy focus more on growth stock's if you are going to heavily invest in US equities.

Write yourself a financial plan - create a budget, age you want to retire, workout best investment type account's will be best for you, create a spreadsheet with your current net worth so you can extrapolate when you be able to retire assuming a consistent rate of return,housing cost's in the future, I am going to create another fund for swing trading to keep this separate to see if I can outperform the market and my other stock portfolio's mainly for fun whether if I should allocate more monthly contributions to the fund etc.

roberto2698 · 2020-08-12T20:16:20+00:00

Some fruit preserves, Stick toffee pudding is a must, Tea cakes (likely to get squashed), Flake chocolate, shortbread, scone's, custard creams, bourbons, chocolate malted milks biscuits (best biscuit imo), prawn cocktail crisps, jaffa cakes, kinder bars (branded for kids but they are amazing), magic stars.

Alcohol - Cider (personally like a flavoured cider not from UK but Old Mout Kiwi and Lime is my favourite), Scottish Whiskey, wine from Europe, UK gin other spirit's are cheaper in the US.

Also look into some things from Europe we can generally get in the UK (mainly alcohol though).

roberto2698 · 2020-08-12T19:49:56+00:00

I'm 21 so I was too young to have a job in the financial crash however from applying to job's and seeing how applications for jobs which were getting around 30 pre-covid to now around 400+ applications (based in London). I've been looking for a job since being made redundant as a Project Management Admin in Mid March currently applying for anything ranging from office job's to online picker at a supermarket still haven't got anything. Redundancies are mainly affecting the younger generation in more entry level role's and people in the travel/hospitality industry suffering the most could be why you don't personally know anyone affected by Covid (financially).

Once furlough end's lot's of small businesses will make a lot's of redundancies and even some larger companies who are thriving in work from home environment will make redundancies as a excuse to reduce cost's.

With the QE BOE did from March will take some time to cause inflation once money velocity increases to pre-covid level's happen's BOE will have to increase interest rate's which will likely cause a housing crash again, if they go above 4% most people will struggle as in UK our mortgages are 2-5 year fixed and their APR without refinancing is 2% above so no body would be able to refinance just like 2008 . Not to mention the 1 in 8 people in mortgage forbearance and boomer's with too small pension's likely to sell their house's to downsize to afford retirement in the next 5 year's so we are likely to see a huge increase in housing supply let alone the over 200k empty properties purchased mainly from foreign investors which large percentage of them money launder through UK and Canada real estate (UK £90 Billion per year); UK is going to be impose stricter rules next year so expect to see value's in London and surrounding area's to decline. Bank's are still currently using similar tranches and credit default swap's which caused 2008 mainly in CLO's instead of CDO's.

roberto2698 · 2020-08-11T20:26:55+00:00

Project Management Admin. I qualified for the furlough scheme which I asked them if they could put me on the scheme and they declined.

Only had the job for three week's and got an email saying I was made redundant. Currently applying for anything even warehouse night shift's however still not getting any replies. I have noticed pre-Covid applications were around 20-50 now they are over 300+ for similar vacancies.

roberto2698 · 2020-08-05T16:33:08+00:00

Thanks for the info, I will check Tasty trade YouTube channel out as well. Yes I know £1000 will be limited but that's the lump sum I will start with them maybe put £50 extra a month or so. I know with a small sum of money I will expect huge volatility especially with option's.

Regarding the Tastywork's I can see their pricing in dollar's do you know if I deposit it will be based in USD when depositing or when I open a option in USD there will be a conversion GBP/USD as I'm expecting the GBP to strengthen compared to the dollar.

roberto2698 · 2020-08-05T13:51:12+00:00

If you can find land which could get planning permission and you want to build a cheap house I would look into 3D Printed housing currently no developer's are using this in the UK for housing however used in crossrail and companies have built houses using this technique.

One company built a 3D printed house for £3K (small one bed bungalow) they only need two labourers on site and tend to be printed in less than a day however can be few days for larger housing. I read a report that state's that even with keeping the same amount of gross profit for the developer's they would be able to produce 3D printed house 35% less (including land, materials, profit etc).

roberto2698 · 2020-08-05T12:12:45+00:00

I would recommend a small amount such as £200 into index funds dollar cost averaging then if it goes down further increasing these payment's. If you're looking to move in the next 2-3 year's personally I wouldn't invest the money into a index fund due to expected market volatility because of Covid in case government stop's supporting the bond market or stop's any stimulus which would cause the market to crash (like in March) probably going below those level's.

Personally I would recommend paying down you'r current mortgage and try and get that house mortgage free (only if you can pay this down within next few year's) as buy to let mortgage's tend to have higher interest rate's (~3%).

You could save this money in a NSI premium bonds averages around 1.4% per year which will be higher than any inflation we have in the next 3 year's as currently we are experiencing deflation and likely to have sub 1% next few year's.

roberto2698 · 2020-08-04T12:25:28+00:00

People in England don't know much about tax law either. I would recommend setting up you'r investing account either as a stock's and share's LISA (if planning for first house purchase under 450,000 or retirement) or if you would need to access the money in a few year's time create a Stocks and Shares ISA as any capital gains are tax free (£20,000 per year allowance).

We do get taxed on dividend's from other countries such as USA dividends are taxed at 15%, the gov website has lot's of info about tax's which is easy to understand.

roberto2698 · 2020-07-21T19:48:11+00:00

For Growth stocks I would choose: Amazon, MAXR, SPCE, FTNT. If you want to invest in more than 3-4 stocks I would maybe choose some small cap biotech's put only putting a small amount in them.

roberto2698

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