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Off topic: Where would you place EUR 100,000+? In a European bank?
Thread poster: Sheila Wilson
Michelle Kusuda
Michelle Kusuda  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 16:34
English to Spanish
+ ...
Why not rent the old place instead of selling it? Jul 9, 2013

Hi Sheila,

Would you not be better off renting the place in France? The rent income would most likely exceed the "interest" income you would earn by depositing it in a Bank.

Additionally, right now is not a seller's market but a buyer's market and you might be better served by renting your house in France while you wait for the economy to recover and prices to stabilize and rise again. Remember, it is all in the cycles!

Good luck, whatever you decide!... See more
Hi Sheila,

Would you not be better off renting the place in France? The rent income would most likely exceed the "interest" income you would earn by depositing it in a Bank.

Additionally, right now is not a seller's market but a buyer's market and you might be better served by renting your house in France while you wait for the economy to recover and prices to stabilize and rise again. Remember, it is all in the cycles!

Good luck, whatever you decide!

Michelle





[Edited at 2013-07-09 22:29 GMT]

[Edited at 2013-07-09 22:29 GMT]
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Angelique Blommaert
Angelique Blommaert  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 21:34
Member (2012)
German to Dutch
+ ...
Give away Jul 10, 2013

I wish I could just give away one of my three Dutch accounts. I am not using one.

In case you want to rent your French house....you know where to find me! We're still looking


 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 20:34
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks everybody - some useful tips there Jul 11, 2013

I've been reading your contributions with interest, and I'm extremely cheered to hear that the talk of the UK leaving the EU is only so much xenophobic jingoism. For all us Brits who live elsewhere in the EU, and presumably for EU citizens living in the UK, it really doesn't bear thinking about. We're very happy in Fuerteventura and don't have any intention of moving further than a few kilometres from our present place.

To try to pull all the threads together:

> I have
... See more
I've been reading your contributions with interest, and I'm extremely cheered to hear that the talk of the UK leaving the EU is only so much xenophobic jingoism. For all us Brits who live elsewhere in the EU, and presumably for EU citizens living in the UK, it really doesn't bear thinking about. We're very happy in Fuerteventura and don't have any intention of moving further than a few kilometres from our present place.

To try to pull all the threads together:

> I have a lot of faith in the Dutch way of doing things, after living there for 3 years, so I'll definitely look into banks based there that I can open without residency
> Personally, I've always refused to allow a cent of my money to be gambled on the stock market, even though I have to accept that my bank does it. Nothing to do with aversion to risk (I'm a freelancer, after all!), more a hatred of gambling in general
> There are entire housing estates here standing empty, so I think I have to be prepared for a long wait to sell my current house. Certainly, the best thing would be to buy a second place immediately, but I'm not sure the finances (not €100,000K unfortunately) would stretch to that, and a loan at our ages (57 and 63) isn't really viable.
> Thanks for the specific Spanish tip, Tomás - I'll investigate that. I haven't had any problems with Sabadell in the last year, but I do know the local banks have acted incredibly irresponsibly in the past. However, I'm not so worried now because they're being watched like hawks and they know it.
> To answer Michelle, we DID rent out our French house a year ago. Our tenants love it so much they want to buy it! They're such a nice young couple, with a new baby, that we didn't have the heart to refuse!

One last question:

How would a normal person go about buying gold? Presumably you don't just go and get some ingots to bring home. Anyway, why is gold so stable? I know it has many and varied uses (the ends of my husband's guitar cables, for example), but isn't it mainly used in jewellery? Who's going to want that if the EU economy really turns turtle? Wouldn't it be better to buy salt or something more useful?
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Rachel Fell
Rachel Fell  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:34
French to English
+ ...
Article Aug 25, 2013

in this weekend's FT: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/193d812a-05be-11e3-ad01-00144feab7de.html#axzz2d1H3Mp68
- comparisons of ways of doing so. They seem to have introduced a new thing about sharing their info. though.


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:34
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Don't buy gold Aug 25, 2013

Sheila Wilson wrote:

How would a normal person go about buying gold?


Gold is at the highest price it's ever been. It would be crazy to buy gold now, since the only way the price can go is d-o-w-n.


 
Richard Foulkes (X)
Richard Foulkes (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:34
German to English
+ ...
Gold at its highest ever price? Aug 26, 2013

Not exactly. It was pushing $1900 dollars an ounce during the recession and now it's around $1370. It's actually bounced recently with rumours of the US Federal Reserve tapering its QE programme and consequent volatility in the equity markets.

To answer Sheila's question, you can buy physical gold but it's probably easier to invest more indirectly. There are online brokerage platforms that allow you to trade commodities, or there are gold ETFs (exchange-traded funds) that you can bu
... See more
Not exactly. It was pushing $1900 dollars an ounce during the recession and now it's around $1370. It's actually bounced recently with rumours of the US Federal Reserve tapering its QE programme and consequent volatility in the equity markets.

To answer Sheila's question, you can buy physical gold but it's probably easier to invest more indirectly. There are online brokerage platforms that allow you to trade commodities, or there are gold ETFs (exchange-traded funds) that you can buy and sell in the same way as shares and these track the price of the underlying asset (albeit they can be structured in different ways).

Not that I'm recommending you do any of the above of course.

Interest rates in the bond markets have risen dramatically in recent weeks so you may find you can get a more acceptable return in more traditional savings vehicles before too long.
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XXXphxxx (X)
XXXphxxx (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:34
Portuguese to English
+ ...
Solar panels? Aug 26, 2013

Before you laugh...

With energy costs at an all-time high and not being a fan of burning fossil fuels, we decided to research alternative forms of energy. Our savings are making zilch at the bank and after getting some quotes, it would seem that getting solar panels would give us about a 15% return on our investment. Okay, that would only eat up a tiny portion of your lump sum; I'm just making the point that it might be worth looking at where you can cut your outgoings by using some
... See more
Before you laugh...

With energy costs at an all-time high and not being a fan of burning fossil fuels, we decided to research alternative forms of energy. Our savings are making zilch at the bank and after getting some quotes, it would seem that getting solar panels would give us about a 15% return on our investment. Okay, that would only eat up a tiny portion of your lump sum; I'm just making the point that it might be worth looking at where you can cut your outgoings by using some of this cash.

If the 100k won't stretch to a property, what about a plot of land?

[Edited at 2013-08-26 14:14 GMT]
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Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 20:34
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Certainly not laughing, Lisa Aug 26, 2013

Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:

Before you laugh...

With energy costs at an all-time high and not being a fan of burning fossil fuels, we decide to research alternative forms of energy. Our savings are making zilch at the bank and after getting some quotes, it would seem that getting solar panels would give us about a 15% return on our investment.

I'm all for that type of investment. When we were in France, we invested in an air-air heat pump installation. We only got a couple of years of use out of it, so it didn't end up being a great investment (we hadn't planned on leaving the country!), but it cut our energy bill to just 20% of its previous level, plus we enjoyed a warmer house in the winter, plus occasional use of the air-con, particularly useful when the neighbours were having late-night parties in their garden.

Solar panels would certainly seem a good bet here in the Canaries, with 360 days of sun per year, although most people seem to stop at solar-powered water heating, presumably because there's actually no call for heating here. There's just one major problem I can see at the moment - I need to buy the house first, so that I have a roof to install the panels on!

Actually, I may have less of a problem than expected. When I started this thread, just 7 short weeks ago, we were looking at a price of EUR 150-190K for a 3-bedroomed place. Now the Spanish banks have been ordered to shift their repossessed properties (I suppose that's what happened), and there has been not just one reduction since then but two. Those same properties are now selling for EUR 89-110K. And of course, non-bank sale prices are coming down too. So it looks as though we can buy as soon as the money arrives, and rent out the current house long term.

If anyone fancies relocating to a fantastic sub-tropical island, now's the time to do it! There's room for many more translators here! Form an orderly queue, please!


 
XXXphxxx (X)
XXXphxxx (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:34
Portuguese to English
+ ...
Sorry I'd misunderstood Aug 26, 2013

I hadn't read the whole thread carefully and (wrongly) assumed you'd already bought a home out there and this was just a windfall that you were hoping to invest wisely. My mistake. I also avoid gambling and have a preference for the tangible. I'll do anything not to give any financial institution my precious savings to play Monopoly with.

 
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Where would you place EUR 100,000+? In a European bank?






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