Time flies when you're having fun

The first few weeks of retirement have been strange. I really have not had any time to do anything as random people make requests on me to do things for them, thinking that I must have time to fill.

How wrong would they be. The first activity was to try to get insurance for the car. This is not as straight forward as I would have expected due to the fact that I had been driving a Company car for over twelve years and the no claims position was, therefore, somewhat vague. Add to that that the policy was third party and I would have expected a full discount. No, its not as easy as that, they considered all the cosmetic repairs I got done before buying as an 'incident' for goodness sake.

Then there is the 'convictions'. For goodness sake,  they are minor traffic offences captured by speed camera's and which make the council a fortune. They don't make somebody a high risk driver just because they have 3 points on their license, and why should insurers count them for five years, when they stay on the license for only three. Somebody is having a giraffe!

I have also read somewhere that they are now going to use the defensive driving course against you in future insurance renewals despite the fact that the police indicate they will not affect your car insurance, when offering them as an option!

Next thing is to sort out new bank accounts and other financial requirements. I did like the look of the Santander 123 account so we have started the ball rolling there. That was complicated by the Council renaming our house from 19 to 21. Proving they are the same property has stretched us too.

Investment rates are also a bit pants, with rates around 3% rapidly being withdrawn. One from Intelligent Finance which is 2.47% came with a note saying it was going down to 1.8% in February. Really not worth the trouble.

I am still working on the Job Seekers allowance  but not holding out too much hope, and may have to wedge up with Zopa to get any sort of investment return In the foreseeable future.

Then there is always the ironing, cooking and cleaning to fill in the spare time!!

Jaws IV

I have become a loan shark. I have ventured into it for a bit of fun and to see if there is an easy way to make money. It's through a web site called Zopa. You tell them how much you want to invest and give them a target rate of return and they do the rest.

I have stipulated a maximum loan of £30 per person and Zopa put together thousands of people to meet the requirement of a borrower. This is designed to minimise your risk. So at the moment I have interest in about twenty loans and am awaiting the interest rolling . You can also look at specific requests and loan as much or as little as you want against it. Most borrowers are looking for loan consolidation, a new car or some business venture funding and interest rates they are prepared to pay range from 5 to 15%. The borrowers are graded like A levels, from A* to C, and the lower the rating the more likely there will be some bad debt associated with them.

So I am up and running and all my borrowers are in the A* bracket, it will be interesting to see how it maps out. Find out more here http://uk.zopa.com/member/witherspoons you may fancy a dabble. I notice it featured in today's Daily telegraph, and with commercial rates lower that 3% it should be of interest !

Banking on a sale

Welcome news from the Bank of England today as they reduced the base rate by a quarter of one percent to use the official jargon. Whether that is enough to encourage somebody to buy my house remains tobe seen, but I suspect not.

Things are quite quiet at the moment. There are occasional viewings, and the odd silly offer by a developer who has noted the house has been on the market a while and wanted to test how desperate I am to sell. I am happy to bide my time at the moment, although would be tempted to take a lower offer if I can see the price of flats dropping. At the moment though they are holding up pretty well in Chis.

I had to laugh last week . One of the houses over the road which was sold in June last year for £1,075,000 has just been offered again for, wait for it, £1,550,000. Now I known the Polish workforce are competitive, but that is one hell of a margin to be seeking in less than a year and in a depressed market. Its also on for almost twice what I am hoping for. It will be interesting to see if it gets shifted.

I am considering changing agents, or even going dual, but I need to see what they can offer me in incentives . It may even be time to consider Foxtons as an option, but I suspect they would want an arm and a leg in commission.

So with the warm weather just round the corner and May being the start of the viewing season, it will be interesting to see if I can accept an offer within twelve months of it going on the market.