Today is St. Edmund’s Day
St. Edmund should still be the patron saint of England.
Today is his feast day and in the place of his death, Bury St. Edmunds, they had a mini-festival with a charity market and some other events.
The Bury MP, David Ruffley is quoted in the East Anglian Daily Times as saying. “No one will persuade me that we are not the most gloriously historic county town in England” He also said that the Magna Carta was not about Runnymede in Surrey in 1215, but about Bury, where it originated in 1214.
The RSPB get Everywhere!
I was reading The Times this morning and they have a slightly tongue-in-check report on the Erotica exhibition at Olympia.
They were rather surprised that the RSPB were there with a stand. But as their spokesman said, “We’re an inclusive organisation. We’re meeting our new market halfway!”
They’ve probably done the right thing, as it says the average spend is £200 a person!
The Problems of Moving
It’s only now, that I’m seeing the sort of problems that I will have with the move.
I already know that a lot of my furniture won’t fit, as although the new house has three bedrooms, it’s got fitted wardrobes and a low ceiling height.
I’ll be getting rid of a classic dresser, a table that seats fourteen and four Victorian wardrobes. One is so awful, you can imagine it being delivered to the house after the wife (or husband for that matter) has bought it at auction and getting a response like “Darling! You actually paid good money for that!” The other three are quite nice, but they are not the sort to put in a modern house.
But it is the mass of paintings and posters, C and I collected over the years. I just won’t have the wall space for them!
I’ve also got enough framed family photographs to cover the outside of the Albert Hall.
I’ll just have to be ruthless.
Is Zopa Getting Too Popular With Lenders?
I keep fairly detailed statistics of my lending on Zopa, so I am able to discern trends fairly quickly. I usually set my rate so that money will be lent out at a Medium speed, which usually means that I lend at a rate between of 7 and 8 percent, with a very low risk of default. Out of the well over 2,000 contracts I’ve lent, only three have gone to default, which is a default rate of just 0.13% by contracts and 0.07% in terms of money.
So I think I’ve got a safe philosophy. But who knows?
However, there is a trend that has started to be noticeable this month.
Zopa allows you to find how much money is wanted by clients and how much is available at all times. Obviously to get a good lending speed to clients, the amount of money on offer should be higher than that demanded. At the start of the month the ratio of Money Offered over Demand was about 2, but it has since risen to over 3.
The reason is obvious as in that time the money on offer has risen from about £15M to £20M.
As every action has an equal and opposite reaction, the extra money has forced the rates that borrowed have to pay down by about half a percent.
So I am now not getting as good a return as I was in the past. But I’m not bothered as the money is much safer than it was in an Icelandic Bank and my returns overall are upwards of five percent, which is above the High Street.
I think though the corollary of this, is that if you need a few thousand to buy a car and you have a good credit rating, then Zopa will be a better place to borrow.
Don’t believe me, but read this article in the Daily Mail about a lady, who wanted £5,000 for a car!
The Anonymous Widower 