Owner: Negotiation, Negotiation, Negotiation URL:http://markharrison.wordpress.com Join Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 06:42:38 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: UK Property (Real Estate) investment news and advice from Entrepreneur TV's Mark Harrison Site statistics:Click here
It’s Frozen Pea Friday (Breast Cancer Awareness) 2007-12-21 04:56:13
You may have heard of a Social Network called Twitter. I use it to keep in touch with a whole bunch of conversations about Internet Marketing, Social Networking and (to a lesser extent admittedly) Property Investment.
However, over the last few weeks, several of the conversations have been on the subject of Frozen
Peas, and this is because of a lady called Susan Reynolds.
For reasons she best explains herself, (but to do with a sudden diagnosis of BreastCancer
) she ended up with a bag of frozen peas tucked into her bra for a while (it’s lighter and moulds better than an traditional ice-pac). As she writes:
“That bag of peas added a touch of lightness to what could have been a sad and serious tale.
A bag of peas was something everybody could relate to.
Some people love them, some hate them, some use them for their own injuries.
A bag of frozen peas was a vehicle for conversation and let people tease me instead of having to cry.
It let people share instead of bemoaning.& Read more:Friday
, Awareness
, Breast Cancer
, Breast Cancer Awareness
More Eastern buying of Western Banks - this time it’s the Chinese 2007-12-20 12:40:33 Ten days ago, I wrote about how the Singapore and Abu Dhabi governments are buying up Western
banks.
This week has seen the Chinese
Government buy almost 10% of Morgan Stanley, the US mega-bank, as reported in the International Herald Tribune.
To give you an idea of how big Morgan Stanley is, it’s just written down the value of its SubPrime holdings by $9.4 billion. This is about 50 times the loss as Bradford and Bingley made in their write-down.
$9.4 billion is, to put it mildly, an awful lot of money to have admitted you loaned to people who couldn’t really afford to pay it back. In these circumstances, is it surprising that it’s getting tougher to borrow?
Oh, and has the head of Morgan Stanley resigned over this? No, but he has said that he won’t accept a bonus this year.
Read more:Eastern
Eight things which don’t make sense about me 2008-03-06 16:03:53 I was tagged by Nicholas Butler to discuss eight random things
about myself. As I understand it, the idea is to write about the stuff that wouldn’t normally have any relevance to my blog, so here goes.
I was stone deaf as a child from the age of about 4 onwards, and started school lipreading [...] Read more:Eight
SEO - Zero-sum game explained 2008-02-27 19:00:47 A couple of days ago, I used the phrase:
SEO
is inherently a zero-sum game
This got picked up in a conversation here about a specific SEO competion, and Knox commented:
That would be hard to explain to the millionaires we’ve created.
I think I’d better explain what I meant by the comment.
A “zero-sum game” is a technical term [...]
Free is the new black 2008-02-26 11:18:17 This month’s Wired Magazine has a great article about why the new pricepoint for many things is free.
The article is written by Chris Anderson, whose last book - the Long Tail - I read a couple of years ago. The book has heavily influenced my training business.
The thrust of the article is that, as the [...]
The greatest real estate agent in the world contest, aka “The dumbest idea in the world” 2008-02-19 03:50:21 One of the things that still amazes me about Internet Marketing is that some people still fall for the idea that you can build a long-term business through coding hacks to make your website appear high on Google.
I’ve met some people who’ve coded their websites like this… and some who have had their websites banned [...]
Nothern Rock Nationalisation - and the winner is, well, no-one 2008-02-18 11:40:34 The Government is finally going to nationalise Northern Rock.
It’s “the right move at the right time for the right reasons”, according to Prime Minister Brown.
This might be a true statement, if you constrain yourself to looking at this morning’s decision in isolation.
Of course, the courts might yet decide that it was a really bad decision, [...] Read more:winner
A new PC, and I’ve gone “Mac” for this one 2008-02-14 05:13:44 I pity Microsoft at the moment - Vista is being poorly received by the lucrative corporate market and their latest debacle (in failing to release SP1 to IT professionals ahead of the general consumer launch, preventing IT support firms being able to give their clients any sensible assessment of the product) seems to be alienating [...]
Free loft and wall insulation for UK residents over the age of 70 2008-01-31 08:33:41 Just a quick note.
If you, or someone living with you, are over the age of 70, then under a Government Scheme, you should be able to receive free loft and wall insulation
, reducing heating bills, and keeping the homes warmer.
I’m afraid I haven’t been able to find out whether this applies to tenants, but [...] Read more:residents
US Interest rates cut AGAIN 2008-01-30 16:28:16 Nine days ago, the US Federal reserve cut US interest rates by .75%.
Since then, I’ve been increasingly concerned about it - it DIDN’T feel like a sensible response - it felt like a knee-jerk reaction to stock market problems the day before - It wasn’t at their regular meeting, but at an emergency session of [...] Read more:Interest
Five Negotiation Techniques in One Letter 2008-01-30 11:56:15 I realised that it had been a while since I’ve blogged about any specific property negotiation techniques, but a letter I’ve just written combines FIVE of the techniques from my negotiation ebook in one single offer.
Obviously, I’m not prepared to give EXACT details, since the negotiation is still ongoing, but here’s what I’ve just done.
Three [...] Read more:Negotiation
, Letter
Why crashes are bad for estate agents, but good for investors 2008-04-17 10:21:10 Over the last three years, I’ve had a bit of a poor reputation on the speaking circuit, for reminding people that there was going to be a housing crash. Others, it seems, have made a good amount of money by preaching that houses and flats only go up in value.
There are some good lessons, however, [...]
UK Government to enter securitisation market? 2008-04-16 12:32:42 One of the most popular articles I’ve ever written on this blog has been What is Mortgage Securitisation, and Why Does it Matter?
If you don’t have time to read it, here’s the 30-second summary:
Some lenders lend their own money to people who want mortgages
Other lenders do, but rather than being owed those loans themselves, or [...] Read more:Government
, enter
Loans to value in a falling market 2008-04-16 12:08:57 There was a slightly odd article in yesterday’s Telegraph about this.
The summary of the article was that, if a lender is prepared to lend, say, 85% of the value of a property, and a property goes down in value, then when you remortgage, you may be able to borrow less than you borrowed last time, [...] Read more:Loans
, falling
This week’s currency movements 2008-04-18 16:25:00 For some while, I’ve been getting Smart Currency Exchange’s weekly updates on currency movements.Smart is a company I’ve used to transfer money to a company I’m setting up in Canada, and specialises in transfers for business and property-purchase purchases. (Basically, they don’t do small amounts, but have rather better rather than, say, my bank, for [...]
Server virtualisation on Linux - Ubuntu on Ubuntu with KVM 2008-04-20 08:01:23 It’s a long time since I’ve written an overtly technical post, but after the last 24 hours, I thought I’d learnt enough obscure stuff that I would make notes in case I have to do it again
Over the past few years, the complexity of the various websites I run, particularly the way that [...] Read more:Linux
, Ubuntu
Gazundering is back 2008-04-23 04:54:29 Alas, Gazundering is back.
This is (whatever the OED may say about chamber pots), the practice by which a buyer goes through the process of buying, and then, on the day of exchange, drops their offer.
Personally, I consider this (and the converse - gazumping, where a seller increases the price on that day) to be “dirty [...]
Winners without losers 2008-04-25 04:22:48 Back in February, I wrote about the concept of the zero-sum game (specifically as it applied to SEO, which is such a thing.) That’s one of the most popular posts ever on this blog (!)
However, it’s also widely misunderstood - one commenter wrote:
How can there be a winner if there’s not a loser?
I wrote a [...] Read more:Winners
Cash on Cash Return when deals involve bridging 2008-04-29 05:21:14 I got an email yesterday from a reader of my book. In the email, he asked a question about how I take bridging fees into account when calculating CCR.
Alas, the answer is: “It depends.”
Quick definition of terms: A bridging fee is what you pay to a lender for a (very) short term loan, in today’s [...] Read more:Return
Inside Track go into receivership 2008-04-30 07:47:05 Inside Track
, the Seminar and Off-Plan company have called in the administrators.
At its peak, the company had over 200 staff, and was reported to make a profit in excess of £10m a year.
Inside Track specialised in property training, and off-plan property deals.
I’ve spoken out against these kind of deals (where investors buy property before it’s [...]
Energy Performance Certificates for Landlords 2008-04-30 03:52:03 Energy PerformanceCertificates
(EPCs) are a key part of the Home Information Packs I wrote about in November.
As of 1st October this year (2008), EPCs will additionally be required by landlords starting new tenancies.
Now, with all these things, it’s always possible that the legislation (or, rather the “guidance”) will change before October, but as things [...] Read more:Energy
Oops - broken process 2008-05-19 08:11:03 The following is a true story, but before I tell it, I should make clear that I’ve already written to the customer apologising for what I’m about to relate (and, obviously, I’m not going to say who it is.)
However, I think the story below demonstrates something very important about small businesses - namely that processes [...]
Today’s blog is brought to you by the number 7 and the word “Stagflation” 2008-05-21 09:50:09 OK, readers of a certain age will have been expecting the letter S, rather than the whole word, but Stagflation is one of those things that seems to have hit us hard.
7 is, of course, the number of members of the Bank of England’s MPC who voted to keep interest rates at 5.0% this month. [...] Read more:Today
Local Housing Allowance (Housing Benefits) rents now on-line 2008-05-28 06:36:35 Many landlords have been suspicious of the transition from HousingBenefits
to Local
Housing Allowance (LHA), however one benefit that HAS come is the greater transparency that is now possible.
The Government’s rent service is now publishing the LHA figures that councils will pay for benefits tenants online. You can search by postcode at:
Please remember [...]
The FSA want to clamp down on “short selling” 2008-06-13 12:50:51 The FSA announced today that they want to clamp down on short selling
of companies in the middle of rights issues.
Short selling is when you sell something (normally a share) you don’t own… in the expectation that the price is about to fall, and you’ll be able to buy it back quickly enough to make [...]
Peter Cook (of the Academy of Rock) on Creativity 2008-06-14 04:24:54 One of the most fun books on management I’ve read in the last few months is Peter
Cook’s “Sex Leadership and Rock n Roll“.
Given that I once released a video called “What the Spice Girls taught us about Property Investment, I couldn’t resist Peter’s Video (below), which talks about business creativity in the context of [...] Read more:Academy
, Creativity
Northants Property Meet - Tuesday 24th June 2008-06-15 13:35:00 Matthew Moody has asked my help in promoting a Property Networking meeting he’s having in a couple of weeks time. I’m happy to do so… (If any other UK people want help in promoting their meetings, just mail me.)
If you go, please mention you saw it on my blog (I’m not paid any commission, but [...] Read more:Tuesday
This week’s currency movements 2008-06-15 13:29:32 For some while, I’ve been getting Smart Currency Exchange’s weekly updates on currency movements.Smart is a company I’ve used to transfer money to a company I’m setting up in Canada, and specialises in transfers for business and property-purchase purchases. (Basically, they don’t do small amounts, but have rather better rather than, say, my bank, for [...]
Carsberg Report recommends licencing of (UK) estate agents, but that HIPs should be made voluntary 2008-06-16 07:32:05 Sir Bryan Carsberg, former head of the office of fair trading, has recommended that estate agents should become licenced, but that HIPs should be made voluntary, according to a report by the BBC.
Now, the cyncical among you might note that the report in question was funded by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, the Association [...]
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