Covid 19 Coronavirus

[OB1]

I'm looking forward to seeing all of the brickies and plumbers working from home!

[DavidS]

I'm looking forward to seeing all of the brickies and plumbers working from home!

Their wives might finally get their home building work finished.

[Tramp]

It's a load of bollocks.. 90%. Don't quote me of goods are distributed by hgv drivers... Let the bugs roll and then we can carry on working... If 9 out of 10 folks caught it and lived the person who stayed at home being a namby pamby would probably die....

[gbags]

I had to go and see some new Chinese tenants today to sign some paperwork.

Hullo, shake hands, chat, chat. Check the house over, sign docs.

Where in China are you from?

Hubei province.

Hubei, as in Wuhan? Said I.

Yes.

Oh good.

[Flipflop]

I'm looking forward to seeing all of the brickies and plumbers working from home!

Sorry but it’s no laughing matter. I went through the crash of the late 80s early 90s. Literally a month after ‘black Wednesday’ there was no building work in London - day rate for a bricklayer went from £100 to £20 and if you hadn’t laid 500 bricks by lunchtime you were down the road with no pay. I lost everything and had to get on my bike (the one thing I kept was my motorcycle) luckily I had no wife or children and found some good folks in the north but they were lean times often living off potatoes for a few days.
When I went to court for my house repossession there were guys in their 40s and 50s in tears - I was told by the solicitor that the courts were running 9am - 7pm, 6 days a week to keep up with the repossession cases, the queues were down the road - I will never forget it.

A combination of the Coronovirus and brexit has the potential to make the banks put the brakes on providing money - and calling in debt.
Hopefully it will all blow over but I suspect a couple of lean years are coming.

[Flipflop]

I had to go and see some new Chinese tenants today to sign some paperwork.

Hullo, shake hands, chat, chat. Check the house over, sign docs.

Where in China are you from?

Hubei province.

Hubei, as in Wuhan? Said I.

Yes.

Oh good.

Be careful of Chinese tenants!!!
We had some with impeccable ID and excellent references- that checked out. They were Vietnamese cannabis growers.
Go back in 2 weeks and check the whole house, loft as well. The downstairs may look impeccable and they will ask you not to go upstairs because the baby is asleep - there was no baby in our house just 4 rooms of cannabis plants.

[OB1]

I'm looking forward to seeing all of the brickies and plumbers working from home!

Sorry but it’s no laughing matter. I went through the crash of the late 80s early 90s. Literally a month after ‘black Wednesday’ there was no building work in London - day rate for a bricklayer went from £100 to £20 and if you hadn’t laid 500 bricks by lunchtime you were down the road with no pay. I lost everything and had to get on my bike (the one thing I kept was my motorcycle) luckily I had no wife or children and found some good folks in the north but they were lean times often living off potatoes for a few days.
When I went to court for my house repossession there were guys in their 40s and 50s in tears - I was told by the solicitor that the courts were running 9am - 7pm, 6 days a week to keep up with the repossession cases, the queues were down the road - I will never forget it.

A combination of the Coronovirus and brexit has the potential to make the banks put the brakes on providing money - and calling in debt.
Hopefully it will all blow over but I suspect a couple of lean years are coming.

I was there for the crash of the 80s/90s too: I was an architectural technician who was made redundant and I have never worked in that industry again. Four years of education and work down the drain. And if you're thinking "highly paid architect", you'd be wrong: I was in my early 20s earning around £6,000 a year. These days I'm a graphic designer in his mid-50s who has never earned the "average" wage and always has the spectre of redundancy hanging over his head as my job is always the first to be farmed out to a freelancer - redundant from 3 of my last 4 jobs.

[johnnyboxer]

I had to go and see some new Chinese tenants today to sign some paperwork.

Hullo, shake hands, chat, chat. Check the house over, sign docs.

Where in China are you from?

Hubei province.

Hubei, as in Wuhan? Said I.

Yes.

Oh good.

Be careful of Chinese tenants!!!
We had some with impeccable ID and excellent references- that checked out. They were Vietnamese cannabis growers.
Go back in 2 weeks and check the whole house, loft as well. The downstairs may look impeccable and they will ask you not to go upstairs because the baby is asleep - there was no baby in our house just 4 rooms of cannabis plants.

Yep
We had that in one of our rented houses
Cost £20,000 to put right - they had cut through all the roof joists with a chop saw and the weight made the roof cave in
Ripped out all the electrics too
Police busted it

[Scott_rider]

I've seen three Cannabis 'houses' in the last 12 months - which is the most I've seen in 30 years in the housing industry. Usually, it's one every couple of years, maximum. And one of the three was in a £6,000 per month rental Which I guess they could well afford, seeing as there appears to be plenty of dosh in that industry . On a serious note, it makes the value of each property a big fat 'Zero' for lending purposes, so the knock-on effect can be a real problem for the owner.

[gbags]

Weirdly, they have their bed (mattress on the floor) downstairs in the living room.
Upstairs is empty.

They do have a toddler though and they really are Chinese (I speak Mandarin).

They pointed out some flaws that weren’t on the Inventory so I’ll turn up unannounced in a couple of weeks to fix them.

Having said all this, I’m in Exeter and I haven’t come across this here.