On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 04:48:34PM +0000, David Concannon wrote:
Good points, this feeds into Dave's crazy idea number 2, which is property investment.
I wouldn't be mad for, say, buying a house. The market is quite inflated, a local crash could easily get rid of a lot of the value of investment, though there's no sign that the present levels of inflation in the market is likely to ease back really. Part of my dislike of this is that it's kind of making the market worse for our own scurrilous greedy gains - we may as well go into drug dealing, trying to settle down is pretty difficult for an awful lot of working couples, I wouldn't feel comfortable profiting from this exact situation. However, read on for other property ideas... Diversifying is good - How about diversifying in the following: Some lump sum stuff: http://www.anpost.ie/personal/finance/personal_financial_lump_certificates.h... 2.74% tax free and state guaranteed (though I'm unsure of whether an investment club can avail of the tax free situation) Some Prizebonds: http://www.anpost.ie/personal/finance/personal_financial_prizebonds.html Tracker funds: http://www.davy.ie/other/pubarticles/funds1.htm If we were to go for property, here's some ideas: http://www.davy.ie/public/GenericPublicPage?page=TaxandProperty Investing in "student residences, hotels, hospitals, car parks and office blocks" I'd be comfortable with, though maybe not car parks ;) The tax breaks (which will be capped at the next budget, by all accounts, but I doubt this would affect our situation) and we'd have rents as well as the value of the property.
Shares? :)
...and maybe some money in shares too. A pool of money for random well-returning shares would be a good idea, and it'll bring out the gambler mentality in us, ensuing in some analysis of markets and learning some stuff along the way. Risk will be small, since we're already diversely investing. The amount invested into shares and tracker funds can be limited to avoid risking losing too much money in the case of a war or whatever. Brian.