Recent research has revealed that the happiest place to live in the country is Powys in Wales. Powys is the most sparsely county in Wales, clearly demonstrating that to be happy, you need as few people around you as possible!
The research, carried out by a team at the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester, found Edinburgh, famous for its comedy festival, to be the most miserable place in the UK. The researchers did stress however that happiness is more of a product of personal circumstances as opposed to where you actually live.
See below for the top 5 most and least cheerful places to live.
| Most cheerful places | Least cheerful places |
|---|---|
| 1. Powys | 1. Edinburgh |
| 2. Manchester | 2. Cynon Valley & Rhondda |
| 3. West Lothian | 3. Amber Valley & NE Derbyshire |
| 4. Cumbernauld, Kilsyth & Monklands | 4. Clydesdale, Cumnock & Doon Valley |
| 5. Macclesfield | 5. Swansea |
According to the latest survey by building society Nationwide, house prices have dropped by 10.5% in the past year after a 1.9% drop in August. The average house price has now dropped to £164,654 a fall of over £19,000 in the past 12 months. The drop is the 10th consecutive month of decline, which has left prices at their lowest level since the Spring of 2006.
From 11th August 2008 on ProblemSolved, front page news in Metro today.
A report on the BBC website today, suggested that mortgages are getting cheaper as providers attempt to inject some life back in to the listless housing market. The report stated that "the average rate charged by lenders on a new two-year deal, for someone with a 25% deposit, was 6.36%. That was down from an eight-year high of 6.6% in June."
Great news on the face of it - but if you think about what this actually means for a first time buyer, it shows that lenders are significantly more mouth than trousers. The average loan in the UK is £155,000; to raise a 25% deposit, you'd need £38,000. Now I don't have any hard and fast data to back this up but I'm willing to stick my neck out and guess that the majority of twentysomethings who are 3 years into their jobs and £12-16k in debt don't have that kind of money stuffed under their mattress.
A 5% deposit of £9,000 might be slightly more realistic - so I thought I'd check Money Supermarket for what the rate would be on that:
Unfortunately there are no products available based on the criteria you have entered into the mortgage comparison tool.
I rest my case...
The BBC is reporting today that well known house builder Taylor Wimpey has recorded a massive loss in the past six months.
The company lost £1.54bn in the six months up to 30 June after having to greatly reduce the value of its assets. Shares in the company now stand at 46.5p, an 11 per cent drop since yesterday. The firm is set to cut around 900 jobs in the UK as demand for houses drops in light of the credit crunch.
This news comes after a surprise 34 per cent jump in Barratt shares two weeks ago.
Are you a filthy hoarder? Attracted by the shiny things in life? If you are, then the contents of your house may be worth a lot more than you’d imagine. Insurance company Legal & General has come up with a clever device to solve this problem.
Using some rather flashy technology, the Homes Content Calculator walks you through each room of a virtual house, totalling up the items stored within. Although basically just a tarted up abacus, the gadget is surprising fun and has an obvious practical benefit.
To give it a go, follow this link. Alternatively, take a look at a few of ProblemSolved's members who deal with insurance work.
Here in London, we like our buildings with a distinctly culinary theme - first the Gherkin and then the Cheesegrater - the capital's skyline is only a baguette and a side salad away from a ploughman's lunch. Over in Beijing, there's a greater sense of mythology about construction projects, and no more so than the impressive Bird's Nest Stadium which played host to the opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympic Games.
We were so impressed that we've done a bit of digging and found out a few facts and figures that you might not know about the Bird's Nest Stadium:
1) It has a capacity of 91,000 - so it holds 1,000 more than Wembley Stadium - but will be downgraded to hold 80,000 after the games. It's big but it's by no way the biggest - the Indianapolis Speedway Circuit holds a quarter of a million people making it the largest in the world.
2) It's 69.2m tall - that's more than 30 times taller than Chinese basketball star Yao Ming, who's no midget at 7'6''.
3)It was designed by Swiss Architects Herzog & de Meuron, who converted the Bankside Powerstation into the Tate Modern we see on the Southbank today.
4) It was built using 36km of wrapped steel, which would be long enough to stretch from one end of the Isle of White to the other.
5)The stadium build cost 3.5 billion yuan (£266 million) and took 5 years - approximately the same length of time it'll take the Aussies to get over us beating them in the medals table.
If you've got any Olympic facts you want to share, post them in the comments below
Ailing house builder Persimmon has announced that its profits for the first half of 2008 have fallen by 87% or over £244 million compared with 2007. The York-based business saw sales fall by 31% with house price drops and falling demand for new builds further eating into its numbers.
The company has cut 2,000 jobs this year and seen its share price fall from 1253p to as low as 228p in the past 12 months.
Need a builder in York? Read the latest reviews in the ProblemSolved directory...
A letter from Homebase chiefs to its staff outlining cuts to the payroll and threatening hundreds of employees with redundancy has been leaked to the Sun newspaper. The red top's award-winning Sun City published the following extracts:
“Our store is one of a number where availability of our customer-facing colleagues does not match our trading patterns or customer demand. Also, sales performance has meant we need to review our store payroll costs."
“Together, these mean a realignment and reduction in colleague hours. If the alternative schedule you’re offered represents a significant change to your current terms and conditions, redundancy would be an option open to you.”
The shake-up will affect around a third of Homebase's 302 stores in the UK.
A survey commissioned by the National Federation of Builders (NFB) has revealed that the soaring cost of living is driving more than 60% of UK adults to use cash in hand builders.
With almost 100,000 complaints being made against rogue tradesmen each year, Julia Evans, chief executive of the NFB says: “As long as the temptation is there, people will be willing to take the risk.”
To combat the problem, the NFB has asked the Treasury to reduce the VAT on improvement and domestic repair work from 17.5% to 5%. Recent evidence from France and the Netherlands has shown that this helps to level the playing field between the cowboys and the professionals, and reduces the temptation to go with the cheaper option.
To search for tradesmen in your area and to read what other customers thought of them, visit our homepage.
A builder's merchant in Abingdon, Oxfordshire has gone into administration and shut down its flagship branch in Slough. The Southern Brick and Tile company, which employs 25 people at its Abingodon base, has called in Vantis who hope to find a buyer within 7 days. A spokesperson for the administrators blamed the lack of stability in the housing market for poor sales.
Need a builder in Abingdon? Read the latest reviews in the PS directory...