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Fred Jones

Human Being

10258 Profile Views

About Me

Electrically qualified, able to do minor building works, decorating and high quality cleaning.
Degree qualified in biochemistry instrument techology (I know how domestic things work or why they will never work and understand building regulations).
Old enough to know a lot about people, finances and common sense.

my expertise in the industry

Landlord in several areas of the country.

Fred's Recent Activity

Interesting article but it overlooks o one important point which is very important to sellers. It is simply the cost of keeping a property you have finished with and no longer want to own. A mortgage is a big one but there will be rates, services, depreciation and vandalism , squatters and so on. Mortgage, £1,000 pcm, rates £150 pcm. insurance £100 pcm and do your own totals. It is very easy to see that a discount for a sale in a slow market is actually a better deal for the seller than waiting for the asking price. It really is that simple and has nothing to do with values and market conditions.

From: Fred Jones 12 March 2024 14:08 PM

I need to adjust my lettings. I study adverts and Right Move metrics. I talk to my letting agents. They all say the same," nothing is happening". The only thing that is happening is that articles like this are desperately trying to jazz up the market. We have an election coming and the likelihood is we will end up with a ramshackle government of socialists which will wreck the free market for the people who make letting work. That will be never be the councils who can simply cover their costs from the rates so the number of lettings will drop like a heavy brick. Expecting is a vastly different metric to reality.

From: Fred Jones 05 December 2023 17:08 PM

Interesting. I have a waterside property in Aylesbury which is not in t he least idyllic but it is essentially, "moated" which means no through traffic, no further development. The small estate is always clean and tidy. There is a lot to be said for a waterside boundary besides the view.

From: Fred Jones 07 July 2023 13:10 PM

You could try looking at a map and the contour heights. Next stop would be visit to a local's pub and talk to the locals. I've been doing that for the last sixty years at various times. Right now I live on the fens just a few feet above sea level. No problem at all because I used some common sense. Many years ago I attended a lib dem planning meeting in Aylesbury. I found myself sitting next to the farmer who was selling the land which the council were going to use for new housing, schools, buses etc. He just kept saying quietly, "That land floods" The ony reply he got from the speaker was that they would put in a drain.

From: Fred Jones 11 May 2023 12:14 PM

Is this a chat gpt article? The basics are: The uk builds rubbish houses and "bargain hunters" buy them. When the bargain becomes a very obvious liability the buyer complains bitterly and an army of do gooders, legal advisers, quangos, MPs, lawyers, press people, the BBC of course and Michael Gove all jump on the band wagon to make new laws to make house building even more expensive. At this point the bargain hunters drop what ever standards they had to buy houses that are worse than rubbish. What is a builder supposed to do to get sales? This nonsense would never happen in, say Germany. Customers there just would not buy and be very insulted if they were offered trash houses to buy.

From: Fred Jones 11 May 2023 12:03 PM

After a long life and buying and selling a few properties little has changed. Just watch the deals you can have, above all learn maths properly. Avoid shared ownership and schemes like that as you would the plague. Same for ground rents. Just let inflation do the rest. Always look after your properties and make totally sure you have a good credit rating. That makes a huge difference during hard times. News people have a fantastic ability to magnify the trials and tribulations of a very few.

From: Fred Jones 27 November 2022 11:58 AM

You are confusing for sale and sold. A lot of people want rid of letting properties. Currently these are un-tenanted and that is likely the way they will stay if the government and councils don't get rid of the tranche of new and expensive laws they have just invented.

From: Fred Jones 07 September 2022 19:48 PM

I think you mean 80 acres?

From: Fred Jones 25 May 2022 11:49 AM

Interesting point. I have a lot of experience of Russia et al. A great deal of our local government is closely aligned to communist tropes and is becoming ever more so. If it carries on the private rental sector will be a very bad place to be. I won't doom monger here................

From: Fred Jones 25 May 2022 11:44 AM

Unless landlords rights are returned to sanity and tenants get out when they don't pay their rent you might as ell hire a bike and cycle to Mars. Of course people would like to live in such property if it existed but only a fool would expect landlords to provide it.

From: Fred Jones 30 March 2022 21:41 PM

Just make sure that the power to invoke these laws stays with good people. If we ever get a communist government then these laws could easily be used against anyone who does not agree communism is good.

From: Fred Jones 26 March 2022 08:07 AM

Switzerland, Monte Carlo, perhaps Singapore? Vast complexity is a great way of hiding all manner of bad things. The old acronym KISS still holds true.

From: Fred Jones 25 February 2022 09:49 AM

Technically, what is new? Gold, diamonds, and all sorts of commodities have been used for payments. It really doesn't matter. The buyer can go on to sell in yet another commodity. Its bartering of course. The problem comes when a country needs to have an accountable value system. That's a deliberately vague term. That system has to have an exact value that persists over long periods. This is where bit coin goes into the realms of Disney fantasy - as does any other barter system. Disney output is always very high quality but it is priced at what you can afford to pay. Stop there. Governments have long used the idea of a fiat currency which they maintain at a certain value. That used to be based on gold but now it is based on trust (laugh) and taxation yield. The latter being as reliable as the wind. What is the value of bitcoin based on? Basically, the cost of today's menu. It is not linked to a fiat currency. I guess that is fine for day to day cash flow but if you are putting money under the bed you will never know what you will be able to retrieve from there. I don't have an answer but how could you make a legal claim to recover what you have lost through fraud or fire unless your asset is related to a fiat currency? Stop there, I am going beyond my pay grade.

From: Fred Jones 14 February 2022 09:56 AM

Council sets up a company! That's an oxymoron if there ever was. And its in Andy Burnham's patch too!

From: Fred Jones 07 February 2022 11:02 AM

Thoughtful article. Just driving ten miles round trip to a house to change the lightbulbs would negate ten to twenty years of electricity savings and I suspect light bulbs are always considered to be the tenants responsibility. Does any one ever calculate the drain on energy efficiency by simply carrying out the work needed? I know that is a chicken and egg question but we have a situation where the changes needed are being upgraded as technology advances. There is never an answer. Might we be better saying that every property must be upgraded every twenty years or when there is a re-let after an initial fifteen years of letting? That would give landlords a clear budget target, allow councils to make hundreds of housing department staff redundant and turn our rat bag of housing nonsense into calm planned living for which we can all, tenants and landlords, budget for.

From: Fred Jones 04 February 2022 10:17 AM

When I were a tiny wee lad, first day of the NHS, every one's house was plastic free apart from a bit of bakalite for our radios and light switches. Windows were, usually rotting, wood. Electric cables were sheathed in lead. Asbestos was used quite a lot and wall cavities did not exist. Our water pipes were made of lead. Getting rid of plastic will not be easy. Put brain into gear before rushing around getting rid of plastic. For sure we can cut down waste but essentially it is a marvellous product to be treasured. In middle life I worked in many communist countries which were essentially plastic free. Horrible places.

From: Fred Jones 31 January 2022 09:22 AM

All very nice and sounds like civil service propaganda. Sorry to say. Ever since humans first stopped using pretty stones for money it has always been a truism that you have to work hard for the best things in life unless you are exceptional. With all our new laws this has gone out of the window. Essentially, and this is a monstrous s implication, if you rent you do it with expectation that your landlord will provide everything that you need or just want. The end point of this will be that every house let will be a luxury property and the tenant will be perfect in every way as a matter of course. Sadly, landlords must be able to protect themselves from rent dodgers, cannabis growers and people who trash properties and live in filth. The way to do this is to offer a range of properties and include facilities for all these people. Needless to say, if you are a rent dodger or vandal you will only ever be offered slum properties. I won't moralise but where is the happy medium? There has to be one. The current logic is unsustainable no matter what you believe in. Bad landlords have had their day, fair enough but good landlords, as we all are of course, are fast becoming the victims of the tenants and surely this is just as much an intolerable situation.

From: Fred Jones 26 January 2022 09:49 AM

This article ( or theme) always comes to the surface is we get closer to a general election with an incumbent Tory government. I won't go into politics and the previous comment is very pertinent.

From: Fred Jones 17 January 2022 09:06 AM

What a jumble of words. What is "real estate tokenisation?"

From: Fred Jones 15 December 2021 10:30 AM

Those amounts of saving are piffling compared to the costs of trying to save them. By all means do things the new way if rebuilding/refurbishing but just pitting in the few things needed for the savings for no other reason will likely costs a lot more in disruption and incidentals.

From: Fred Jones 07 December 2021 11:33 AM

No mention of lifts, car parking, gardens, rubbish collection and site access control. All very essential and if not right can create a living disaster.

From: Fred Jones 27 September 2021 10:13 AM

Sorry, but! Most of those fire issues are caused by the tenants. In my own experience as a landlord and a tenant: Using the fire extinguisher to prop open a fire door is normal. Those strong springs are a curse for working tradesmen, frail people and mums with prams. No one has an answer there. Certain people are the regular offenders. Very often they are particularly unpleasant bullies. Can't say more or I will be cancelled. Many fire doors are cheap as chips products that look pretty when installed but only have a service life of about two years. Bodgit it quick locks and hinges are n.b. use at all. Cladding fire risk is absolutely down to the inspectors right the way from ground break up to demolition two hundred years later. I managed to dodge that problem by looking at the outside walls before moving in. Just stand outside and look at the building and if you can't see the bricks or concrete walk away. Fire alarms that beep when the battery is low should be illegal. ( I think they are now?) Few tenants will, or can change the batteries. Also, they don't want to touch them in case they are held at fault. Still the article makes a nice story for comfortable people living in the suburbs. Now if you go into a European block of flats ............. all that sort of stuff is taken care of and they can be lovely places to live.

From: Fred Jones 27 September 2021 10:06 AM

I don't believe it! A well written, useful article on property. Thank you.

From: Fred Jones 01 September 2021 10:00 AM

I am not surprised. Women can be as hard as nails and nobody will complain. A man in that situation would be up in court for something or other plus harassment. As a man, I deliberately use a letting agency run by ladies. They don't know much about plumbing but that is a small cost to bear compared to the ruthless efficiency they demonstrate in their management. They frighten me!

From: Fred Jones 24 August 2021 11:27 AM

If you want vast numbers of rental properties it would be a lot easier and cheaper to turn the legal dynamics of letting back in favour of landlords. First stop would be to stop councils for ever legislating because of the cost of it. It achieves very little when it issues licences to do the totally obvious. Second step would be to charge builders and property inspectors for the current fire safety mess. Building societies have a hand in this as well. Their inspectors have passed a great many mortgage applications without properly examining the property. I watched an inspection of a house I was selling. I recognized the car. Whoever, slowed down to third gear as he drove past.

From: Fred Jones 24 August 2021 11:19 AM

I'm getting old. Me and mine have three very sound let properties. Two are flats with long leaseholds and we would like to sell them just to have the cash. The price achievable is so low that the only sensible thing to do is carry on letting. In time that will very likely pay more than a sale. I would like to see some sort of certificate became available to tell people the flats are safe. They have a very good block management agent who is keeping them that way. They have not failed all manner of current inspections.

From: Fred Jones 23 August 2021 17:01 PM

I hear further education people are starting to use entrance exams as they once did back in the days of letter writing . That will drop the numbers of students very suddenly. One hopes it will raise the quality of higher education results as well.

From: Fred Jones 10 August 2021 09:42 AM

Very true, I have been there. I think there is mileage to put this problem onto letting agencies as well. As it is now they can make the 'mistake' and dump the costs on the property owner.

From: Fred Jones 10 August 2021 09:33 AM

This sounds like the diatribe used by Chairman Mao's pernicious modernisers. He went one step further and executed house owners the state did not like and reallocated their, 'empty' houses as well. Seizing peoples' property is not something that quality governments do. It is so easy to just keep changing the criteria for seizure and have a rolling target of state theft of property. Besides, the councils charge full rates on empty property which are not using any council services.

From: Fred Jones 09 July 2021 09:12 AM

I'm curious to know how we will build houses without electrical insulation on the wires and how we will distribute and collect water? I really don't want to see metal guttering ever again. How will our kitchens work? Our abundant supply of floor coverings are mostly plastic. Wool is a bit of a luxury so that will be out of order. Most of our clothes are plastic of some sort, so are modern cars. Plastics are not the main polution, it is the whole house on the land it's building has destroyed. We would do better to insist that houses have a 150yr service life without structural repairs being needed and if they are the council planning group pays for them for passing the original work. I can dream can' I?

From: Fred Jones 28 March 2021 23:46 PM

I first came across this, "game" about ten years ago.Don't just blame the builders , they are just ripping off buyers who are a bit slow. That is as old as the hills. Conveyancers fail to point it out properly. Solicitors don't warn their clients or if they do the clients can't do the simple maths. Estate agents won't talk about such things, it's up to the buyer to work it out. The councils couldn't care less. They could stop this at the planning application stage - if they could do their job properly of course. The property I was looking at was," A Buy" so that is when I wanted full details. The show room salesman really did not want to tell me but I kept pushing. Eventually he , "came clean"and told me he was not happy either and said there will be someone else come along soon enough. At that time I was going through an enfranchisement for a flat that I occupied (can't say owned because you will only ever own the lease) so I was fired up looking for rip offs.

From: Fred Jones 22 March 2021 16:29 PM

There will be an almighty collapse if civil servant experts with little real world knowledge carry on tweaking. There has to be a mechanism to allow lesser folk to bridge the gap between impossible property owning and and living on the street or shanty towns. Letting is that bridge. Landlords can never charge more than their tenants earn. Its worse than that because rates have to be paid and councils have rights whereas landlords no longer seem to have any. The biggest part of property investment is using property as a hedge against inflation via always increasing property prices. Only rent is a real profit with value. OK, its not that simple but if landlords are busted the whole pack of cards will fall down.

From: Fred Jones 03 March 2021 11:02 AM

There was a time when block builders threw freeholds in the bin as worthless. Sometimes they set up a management company to run the flats as a simple benefit for the tenants and the the freehold went to the management company. Those were the days. I suspect computing power is the true villain in that it enabled freeholders to make and service small charges on a grand scale. The biggest problem for x-hold now is politicians who are ignorant but have ideas which must be great because they know it all. The current mess with leaseholders' enfranchisement for leasing has blown up in a huge bomb blast. Tenenants are now liable for major structural faults. Historically they could have just left the building loosing only a few pounds and left the building to fall down.

From: Fred Jones 17 February 2021 16:52 PM

A far better fix would be to ban leasehold on residential property. For blocks of flats the freehold should belong to a residents management company. Every flat is a member of that company. I work that way and it is so much simpler and reliable.

From: Fred Jones 17 February 2021 16:34 PM

Right now I Would stress test my borrowing against a 12% interest rate and something similar for inflation. It is not that you can not work with those figures but that you can come an almighty cropper, very suddenly, if things go wrong. You must be able to work with compound interest rate calculations and the effects of fees. Watch out for outrageous 'capers' with leasehold. This is the next amazing get rich scheme to scam the innocents.

From: Fred Jones 17 February 2021 16:08 PM

His name would warn me off straight away. Can't say why. I attended one of these courses a good many years ago. It was free which was the only honest bit. I had just started out with property investment and had been doing a lot of spread sheet modelling and ROI calculations especially with interest rates. If you can't do that don't speculate at all! After a while I could hear this chap had nothing to offer over what I knew all ready which wasn't a lot at that time but he dressed it up. "gloriously". The first part of the session was winding up the participants. Watching them was more interesting than the talk. They were engrossed. It was frightening to watch. At half time he asked the audience not to come back if they did not believe they would easily make a fortune. There was only one person out of around fifty who did not go back. I never did find out his secret but my own skill worked out very well.

From: Fred Jones 17 February 2021 15:36 PM

What was the sentence?

From: Fred Jones 12 February 2021 14:38 PM

I am beginning to wonder if the best plan is to simply restore the financial status of the people owning leases in these properties on condition they just walk away from them. Building surveyors, councils, lenders, solicitors, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all can sort the mess out. They caused it never thinking that the quality of the property really does matter. The sale of goods act really does count for something - as far as I am concerned.

From: Fred Jones 10 February 2021 10:41 AM

I suspect that has been the case ever since the industrial revolution times. Even then living in population dense cities was a health risk with regular plagues just as nasty as covid. No wonder successful people set up country estates or at least a house.

From: Fred Jones 29 January 2021 11:02 AM

The biggest mistake was to bring in vast numbers of National standards. Building should have been left with local authorities which would have resulted in local problems and local cost centres. That's probably not a useful comment but my guess is that many authorities would only have built with in their own local knowledge and experience. Out in the country you might have a bunch of farmers who would well know what can happen when you build a large flammable building. They would also know what was dangerous because they are used to large bonfires. In a town experienced planners will well know what happens when you group too many people together in crappy cheap houses.

From: Fred Jones 22 January 2021 11:53 AM

Very well said -written. We have various sorts of politicians in the UK (as every where does) Some are terribly nice but vocal know nothings, others amount to communists and most of them know nothing at all. In the middle we have most people who are sensible and just get on with a good life. They never get elected because they don't have, "policies" to catch votes. What we have now is swathes of properties that will be controlled by elected know nothings of all sorts who are the harbingers of disaster for probably half the countries population, never mind the property owners. I am too old now but how about people in the estate agent industry creating a formal rating of their properties which concentrates on saleability, maintainability, financially support and local council attitudes. I know solicitors are supposed to do this , some even do, but they will never give a report for their own business safety. We have reached the point where the financial viability of a residential property is a complete mystery to most people and hearts and wallets are going to be broken .

From: Fred Jones 18 January 2021 10:16 AM

British common sense and education is a lot different to the States. Our current approach where councils are trying to control the p.r.s. is going to cost us dearly as it is based on pipe dreams about realism.

From: Fred Jones 11 January 2021 20:01 PM

I own a few flats in blocks. They are just about identical. Some are very mouldy. That tenant cooks by boiling everything. It has had to have special extraction fitted. My fidentcial flat, close buy doesn't have any problems. Go figure. A lot of UK building is pss poor. Once cheap concrete walls get cold then there will be mould. Occupier intelligence is the biggest cause of damp and mould. Please don't delete this, it is not always true. I have no patience with people who can't wipe a wall down when needed. Neither does my wife, she makes me do it. To tenants: Look before you rent. If it look like an East German block house from the sixties then that is what it is. Our own councils have been big offenders for nasty social housing. If you always have a damp property no matter where you rent then maybe it is your fault?

From: Fred Jones 11 January 2021 19:53 PM

The big issues now are: Huge population spreading inexorably over our agricultural land Huge population susceptile to health pandemics Huge population being rammed into crappy new build property Add to this: Together all the new tenants / renters rights legislation has wrecked our leasehold/freehold property owning system. The way we provide housing at all is going to have to be rebuilt in legal terms.

From: Fred Jones 19 December 2020 15:22 PM

Simon, good points but please mention, "Leases and freeholder charges". These are getting to be a very considerable, expensive menace and as primary leaseholders seek to prevent enfranchised tenants from buying their freeholds that menace is increasing all the time. Flat and house buyers face very real financial risks. There are two situations where these risks are very high indeed, unobtainable fire certificates and lease renewals as the original leasholds near their end date. there may also be subleases in force as well. This is even more complicated when you find estate agents don't understand the problems, or, wilfully ignore them. I Have been through two expensive lease buyouts which have worked out well but I had bought leased properties with known risk. If these buyouts had gone wrong I would now be looking at very low capital value leased property sales with only tenants' rents being of any value.

From: Fred Jones 23 October 2020 21:09 PM

With experience, only buy leasehold if there is a management company which is owned by the tenants and which also owns the freehold. By this I mean the leaseholders, NOT tenants sub letting from the leaseholders. There is a legal right for people owning the sub leases to get together and collectively buy the freehold at reasonable cost. In reality this is something that must be done. You are mad if you don't. There is absolutely no news at all in this article. House builders and "investors" have been screwing tenants all over the world in this way since forever. I might add that a conveyancer or solicitor is failing badly if they don't inform you when you buy leasehold. There is some news in another article in this edition about the changing value of ground rents with reducing leases and leasehold periods. If you read that carefully it will mesh with the way leaseholders are being treated in this article.

From: Fred Jones 30 September 2020 13:10 PM

As always, if you buy there then b well live there and not leave the property empty most of the year. Renting it out full time would be a help. Ask people in Welsh villages what they think of outsiders buying all their houses.

From: Fred Jones 14 September 2020 09:47 AM

There is a lot of truth in the article but basically most of the suggestions are how to, "liberate" old folks equity for profit and that includes the tax people as well. As one of those old folk my nice house is a good place to isolate, provides a huge amount of exercise just looking after it, it is debt free and thus cheap to run and is already modified for down stairs living. Big garden as well.

From: Fred Jones 30 July 2020 11:35 AM

Personally, fear of loosing a tenant has a lot more to do with not upping the rents. Right now no one wants any trouble with a letting. That includes the tenant!

From: Fred Jones 03 July 2020 19:22 PM

Could it be that male landlords do their own repairs and cleaning? That sort of the thing is very expensive if you rely on agents booking their contractors to do the work. Something like cleaning black cooking oil out of a carpet costs several hundred pounds via a letting agent. Doing it your self with a big cleaner you bought ages ago as once in a lifetime purchase only costs pocket money.

From: Fred Jones 26 July 2018 11:52 AM

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