If you fix your mortgage now pick carefully April 15, 2010 EARLIER this week we learned that mortgage applications climbed back to pre-recession levels last month. Research from mortgage broker Countrywide showed that a growing number of Britons are now choosing fixed products rather than flexible tracker mortgages. Fixed products made up 61 per cent of applications in March – an increase of 4 per cent [...]
Buy a fraction of St Lucia paradise April 15, 2010 THE Caribbean can be a paradise for second homes: but you have to choose wisely. You don’t want to end up in a tourist trap or an area that has been overdeveloped. And if buying into a new development, you want to be sure it’s managed well and properly financed. The new residences and villas [...]
Find beauty on the Welsh coast April 15, 2010 SECOND home hunters with a bit of cash have tended to gravitate towards destinations such as the Cotswolds and Cornwall. Great minds think alike and because of this, those areas have become over-crowded and pricey to boot. So perhaps it’s time to think outside the box, and there are few places better – or more [...]
FOCUS ON: WESTERHAM, KENT April 15, 2010 ROSE ARCH, BUCKHURST ROAD, WESTERHAM Price: £729,000 A detached bungalow, this property is set in approximately two acres of grounds. It has three bedrooms, a lounge, separate dining room, a kitchen/breakfast room and two bathrooms. It also has an attached triple garage which has potential, subject to planning permission. There is also a double garage. [...]
INTERIORS April 15, 2010 Andrew Dunning HEAD DESIGNER, APD INTERIORS Q. Dear Andrew, with summer coming up I want to make the most of my garden. How can I bring the outside into my house? A. To create a seamless transition between the inside and the outside use a similar flooring. For example, lay limestone in your living room [...]
Software king bounces back April 15, 2010 WHEN Michael Jackson joined the board as non-executive chairman of online gambling firm PartyGaming in 2005, he knew that he had kissed goodbye his chance to join what he calls the City’s “great and the good”. PartyGaming’s US business was under scrutiny and subsequently it chose to close down its US operations as a result [...]
Weighing up that big move overseas April 15, 2010 IN THE past two weeks BlueCrest, one of the largest hedge funds in the City, and chemicals group Ineos have both announced they are leaving the UK for tax reasons, relocating to Guernsey and Switzerland. But will the UK’s tax and regulation laws force entrepreneurs to do the same? Yes, says David Kilshaw, partner at [...]
SALES April 15, 2010 Q. I have recently started my own business but I don’t have much experience with selling, are there any techniques I should learn? A. The first thing about being successful at sales is to have the right attitude. Forget the old, hard image of sales. Modern selling is consultative, says Edward Dulson, managing director of [...]
Rickie’s return just misses the mark April 15, 2010 Film CEMETERY JUNCTION Cert: 15 HAVING proved he can make it in Hollywood, Ricky Gervais has brought a whole load of Tinseltown gloss back with him for this tale of small-town kids in the Seventies. Written and directed by Gervais and old mucker Stephen Merchant, the film is polished, conventional and formulaic to the degree [...]
ALSO OUT THIS WEEKEND April 15, 2010 FILM REPO MEN Jude Law turns action hero in this futuristic thriller about a nasty trade in human organs. BOOGIE WOOGIE Weak satire of the London art scene with an all-star cast. DEAR JOHN Romantic drama about a GI and the college girl he falls for. DVD LAW ABIDING CITIZEN Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx [...]
