Investment Ideas?

semi-pro waster said:
For a while I've been half thinking about lending some money through Zopa, it seems to provide a reasonable return and it seems like there's a much more direct connection with the people that you are lending to than just through an investment fund. It may be that it's just a cleverly packaged illusion to give the appearance of a connection but I quite like the idea anyway.

There's a few things that I need to sort out first before I've got the disposable income to do that though.
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AmDaMan said:
Why throw money away initially when there's a good baseline of knowledge right here? :p

In regards to property - are we talking about 90-95% mortgages and then finding tenants?

In regards to stocks and shares, I've just booked a course with the Academy of Financial Trading to get the basic info before I go down that road. Wonder how that will go..

Gilly - will look at that prospectus fully tomorrow, looks interesting.

Dean - Cheers for the links, will have a read.

EDIT: Zopa looks pretty interesting.. I like how they spread the risk by dividing up your money to multiple borrowers.. Will look into that.
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I've lent on Zopa, it works quite well, I made ~10%. You can make more if you allow more risk or less with less risk. You can just lend to a big pot so your money will be split into tiny amounts (pennies) across multiple borrowers. There is also the option to pick specific people; there are pages listed with people saying things like "Need £10k for a new car", they'll get some direct loans with custom made deals from specific people or they can take a standard loan from zopa at a less good rate (although probably still better than a bank). All people borrowing money are credit checked just like a normal bank, although as banks know, people can still default so I would suggest lending to the pot, if someone defaults you simply lose for example 10p, which would be covered by profit.

I believe as a lender you can even withdraw your money early (at a worse rate) because of how big Zopa is now they can afford to do this.
 
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One More Solo said:
There are professional people out there that provide financial advice, can't remember what they're called though. ;)
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There are sales people who purport to do the above - 'stockbrokers' who might well provide you with some advisory service and so called 'financial advisors' who's job is to sell you a range of packaged products.

I wouldn't compare them to actual professionals who you might want to pay for advice - you might require a Solicitor for specialised legal advice or an Accountant for tax advice. These people are actual professionals - a Solicitor/Accountant will have trained for years in order to pass professional exams and can provide you with advice that would take a lot of research on your own.

Stokbrokers and Financial advisors on the other hand don't require much training in comparison - they pass some exams (multiple guess ones) that are at the level of A-Levels and their main job is to be a salesperson. Most of what they could advise you on you could research for yourself.
 
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Rotty - when you say he put 50k each are we talking about deposits? Why such a high deposit in 2 properties rather than a lower deposit across 4 properties with a higher ROI per month?

Simon - Yeah i've looked briefly into low risk shares paying dividends but always figured this was just a secure investment, as to see decent ROI on dividends you'd need to invest a hefty sum, which is fine of course but in my situation probably not a viable approach right now. I need to learn a lot about shares in general though so I'm probably talking rubbish.

Interesting about Greggs, it looks like the SP has been steadily falling for the last 3 months though?

El Pew - I'm a UK resident, just over here for work, so those rules will depend on the stock market i'm looking at right?
 
AmDaMan said:
Rotty - when you say he put 50k each are we talking about deposits? Why such a high deposit in 2 properties rather than a lower deposit across 4 properties with a higher ROI per month?
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no, they were outright purchases at £50k each
 
How much you looking to make and over what period?

Dont forget dividends received in an ISA are tax free so a 4-5% yield needs some beating as a higher rate tax payer. Also some of these shares can increase (along with dividend yields) especially on long term positions.

This would be what I would look at as an alternative to premium bonds which average out at something like 1.5% (less than inflation). Premium bonds are a waste of time IMO
 
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I'm also interested in some investment ideas , have put some in funds last year via Hargreaves which increased by about 10% or so since last year.

Most cash is sitting in a current account earning pretty much no interest :(
 
Had no idea a property for 50k could earn 400pcm.. I would have an issue saving 50k as a lump sum though unless it was over a few years. Maybe i can become a customer of Zopa :p

Simon - I'm looking to invest month by month with a reasonable short to mid term ROI. This is why i'm willing to take risks as i'll only invest my disposable income. I guess eventually I could liquidate the various investments for a lump sum but would still like to see results over the short term.

I only have about 1k in PB's but have had cheques for about 150 since they were issued. Which is a 15% return over 2 years. Maybe i'm just lucky.
 
That's crazy! That's a 10.4% ROI per year, pretty good!

Even if it was mortgaged that still seems pretty lucrative..
 
AmDaMan said:
That's crazy! That's a 10.4% ROI per year, pretty good!

Even if it was mortgaged that still seems pretty lucrative..
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You'll be taxed on that so it's more like 6%. Plus might be tricky to manage yourself so you'll need an agent, eating into profit. But as a long term investment it could make sense
 
Simon said:
You'll be taxed on that so it's more like 6%. Plus might be tricky to manage yourself so you'll need an agent, eating into profit. But as a long term investment it could make sense
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he does use an agent ( 8% I think ) but offsets the tax by paying the rents into his pension or something like that
 
I have a cash ISA that's about to hit its limit of £11,280, from what I can work out I can have unlimited amount of ISAs but can only pay into one per tax year. So when this one hits its limit I simply open another and rinse and repeat ?

MW
 
Mr-White said:
I have a cash ISA that's about to hit its limit of £11,280, from what I can work out I can have unlimited amount of ISAs but can only pay into one per tax year. So when this one hits its limit I simply open another and rinse and repeat ?
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Essentially, yes. You can start a new ISA before the end of each tax year (5th of April) up to that year's given limit.
 
You can only put £11,280 a year into stocks and share ISAs and half the amount into cash ISAs.

This only applies to a year though so on 6th april you can start putting more money into either your existing ISA or a new one.
 
Sweet, so every 2 years I can just create another cash ISA, but is it worth putting the £11,280 into stocks and shares a year instead as I could max these out every year ? and what happens with the interest as it pays it into the ISA account and will take me over the limit ?

MW
 
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Mr-White said:
I have a cash ISA that's about to hit its limit of £11,280, from what I can work out I can have unlimited amount of ISAs but can only pay into one per tax year. So when this one hits its limit I simply open another and rinse and repeat ?

MW
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What do you mean by £11,280 in this context ?
 
Simon said:
What do you mean by £11,280 in this context ?
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Instead of opening another cash ISA next tax year with a limit of £5640 a year, would it be more beneficial to open a stocks and shares ISA as the yearly limit is £11,280 ?

MW
 
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