With Jason‘s assistance I finally got the frontpage of DVDs.ie to look a little bit more palatable. I’m still trying to sort out a new backend and am considering upgrading the server hardware as well. The main complaint I’ve had from people is that the pricing is in Sterling only, which is understandable.
Useless fact of the day – shredders overheat easily. I’ve been trying to get rid of accumulated junk mail, old bills, receipts etc., this afternoon and managed to upset the shredder. As soon as it cooled down it started working again. Getting rid of all the paper revealed a number of odd items that had been buried on my desk for the last few months.
I’m currently investigating my options in terms of buying a house. I’m happy with the house I rent, but I’m not so happy with the money going out the door every month and not having anything to show for it. So I had a drive around a few “developments” yesterday afternoon.
I still think it’s insane that a small to medium-sized house can cost in excess of 250k!
The mortgage lenders seem to have got cold feet over the last week or so with many of them reducing the options considerably. The days of the 100% mortgage seem to be numbered.
I hooked up my Sky+ box to the amp on Friday evening as I’d received the optical audio cable I needed (nobody seems to stock anything longer than 1m in this country!). The difference in sound quality is very noticeable, though the volume levels tend to jump a lot between channels, so you need to keep the remote control close to hand or risk deafening yourself / the neighbours.
On the topic of AV gear…
A lot of people criticise Monster Cables pricing, but I wonder have they seen this lot
Some of the cables listed, such as the Third, cost several thousand pounds for short lengths. I’d love to know who buys this kind of stuff.
It’s a very bad time to be buying a house; I’d be shocked if we’re anywhere near the bottom, especially outside Dublin. Those houses you were looking at were probably built on the back of the pricing boom, and the developers will be looking to sell at least a few at mad old inflated prices to cover their losses.
I think it is a bad time to buy a house, people still think the market’s strong, the banks disagree. I have my house over a year, but if I were to buy the same house, across the road, at a cheaper price now, the interest rates would ensure that I’d pay more per month than I am paying now for a more expensive house. I’d wait for another while personally.
Re; dvds.ie, build it in ruby on rails, can’t recommend the framework enough. I’ll never go back to php for any project on a large scale.
@Robert All house prices in this country are inflated 🙂
@jrainsford – I can’t program, so I have to rely on 3rd party supplied code or hire someone to do the coding for me
Housing developers and their ken are yet another cartel in Ireland – first artificially forcing prices up and then flooding the market. And of course the banks are in on it too (they’re in on all financial wheeling and dealing – good or bad). The Japanese economy crashed in the 80s partly due to inflated house pricing and related finances. The US economy is part way through a really bad spell at the moment again partly due to housing and related finances silliness. Ireland won’t be far behind. All I can say is thank you to all developers, estate agents and banking people involved. Hope you guys made enough cash to carry on your lives of luxury through the bad spell. Would be awful if you had to sell the private helicopters, yachts or hotel shares, earned by fleecing the working population of Ireland.
If you are planning on getting your own house in the near future – build your own. All the builders will soon be out of work, and lining up to do work for you at cut rates.
I was wondering if you had seen this article on monster cables http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/03/audiophiles-cant-tell-the-difference-between-monster-cable-and/
None of the banks offer 100% mortgages at the moment (to people on normal earnings). They’ve all dropped them.
@hostyle – the problem with building your own is you need a site and they’re almost as expensive as a “cheap” house
@Stewart – Yeah. I saw that. Most of the AV cables I have are good quality, but I’m paying for good quality connectors that won’t break – not silly brand names. I’ve already had an “interesting” experience with a HDMI cable going nuts and dropping a load of colours. Pearl Harbour in green was not exactly what I had planned!
Good. 100% mortgages were a stupid, dangerous idea in the first place.
@Robert – I disagree. 100% mortgages are fine as long as you give them to people who can make the repayments
Anyone who can reliably, safely afford the repayments can also afford a deposit.
Not necessarily.
If they’re paying a silly amount of rent etc., then they might not be in a position to put money aside for a deposit.
There are a multitude of reasons why someone might have problems putting together a deposit + paying legal fees + buying furniture etc.,
@Robert, I disagree. A deposit is at least 10% of mortgage. Average house price is about 250k. No one has at least 25k ready to drop as a deposit, unless they get a term loan.
Myself and my partner got a 100% mortgage because there was no way we could come up with any deposit and afford the move at the same time.
@jrainsford – exactly and you’re not allowing for the legal fees etc., which you also have to pay on top of everything else
Was in carlow myself the weekend, nice development being built on the way in, Shamrock something.
Imagen having Tom O’C as a neighbour! 😛
Tom
Are you a noisy neighbour? 🙂
Michele
Michele, there is no time like the present to buy that house! Paying rent is money down the drain! and certainly out of your pocket! It’s an investment if anything. I have my own house a couple of years now. It was a darn struggle at first but I’m away on a hack now, more or less 🙂 I did rent out one room for a while, to help pay the mortgage.
(had no legal fees though and that was a plus – one of the perks of working for a legal firm at the time. Depending on the development and mortgage company, chances are that some legal fees may be covered)