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The biggest house in London, Russian billionaires, and property development... The New Yorker posted a story on it, which makes for interesting reading. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/01/house-of-secrets There are a few pictures of the property at Forbes...

I've just been doing a bit of browsing on building houses without wet trades, and I stumbled across the Irish Vernacular website, which is about a place built for ?25,000 (about $37,000). Dominic Stevens, the architect, describes the motivation for the project thus: I found myself...

The Oracle talks about his real estate investments, amongst other things. http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2014/02/24/warren-buffett-berkshire-letter/

Boffins have figured out how Buffett makes his money. The full paper can be found here.

Sometimes the timing just doesn't work out! :eek: Spotted in a pile of books outside a charity shop in Ealing this evening.

Stephen King (not that one) has written an interesting sounding book, "When the Money Runs Out". His thesis is that there are going to have to be cutbacks on living standards and entitlements because growth isn't going to continue at the same rate as before. Anyway, there's a talk on his...

The Stirling Prize is the big architectural competition in the UK. This year they've got three interesting residential projects, and I thought that I'd post them as a source of inspiration. Astley Castle Astley Castle burnt down in 1978, and was recently rebuilt as a holiday let. The...

The Independent got hold of recordings of phone conversations between senior figures at Anglo Irish Bank during the early stages of the GFC. They're revealing, and probably add credence to the "first against the wall" solution to dealing with bankers. :eek...

This seems an appropriate comment on the recent UK budget. http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/this-housing-boom-will-be-perfect-says-osborne-2013032163413 For background, see...

The London market is definitely weird, as it's continuing to rise despite an economic downturn, a shrinking finance sector, and ongoing uncertainty about just about everything. Anyway, the FT has a piece up today which shows just how dependent it is on foreign buyers... This diagram...

Matt Taibbi (originator of the Vampire Squid epithet) has penned a piece on Mitt Romney for Rolling Stone, contrasting the use of debt during his business career with his demonisation of it in his politics...

Here's an interesting article on psychology and how hindsight is fooled by randomness, particularly in relation to poker and investing. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100178222/is-skill-at-poker-and-elsewhere-just-one-great-big-bluff/ I probably need to take another...

There's a piece at the Independent about a City analyst's pension planning today. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/simon-english-paid-experts-top-tip--ignore-shares-advice-7936480.html Stock picking, it's a mug's game. :D

There's a worrying piece by Robert Peston on the BBC website this morning about the state of British and European banks. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18607088 Banks are allowing customers to have payment holidays or shift onto interest only deals in order to hang onto their mortgage...

I stumbled across this whilst looking at what's for sale in my locality. It's not my thing, but it's an impressive piece of work. http://aylesfords.reapit.com/ayldets/CHE120079.PDF No idea what the asking price, but the next one down in the listings is £40 million. Get saving. :D

Stephen King wants to pay more tax, and has a very funny rant about it. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/30/stephen-king-tax-me-for-f-s-sake.html There seems to be a bit of a debate going on about this in the US. Martin Wolf had a piece on it over at the FT recently...

Another Irish story. This time it comes from Monty Munford's blog. One friend told me confidentially about his posh hose. He had bought at the height of the Celtic Tiger, a million Euro mortgage costing him six grand a month. By his estimates the value had plunged not by the official figure...

There's a piece at FT Alphaville today about the source of imports into China. What caught my eye was this graph. There has been talk about how a Chinese slowdown would affect Australia, and this illustrates it quite clearly.

An Irish hotel that was on the market for €6 million in 2008 has just sold at auction for €650K. http://www.independent.ie/business/commercial-property/manager-buys-donegal-hotel-on-market-for-6m-in-2008-for-650k-3037780.html The nice thing is that the general manager, who's been leasing...

BBC Radio 4 had a play on earlier today explaining the European debt crisis called the Great Squanderland Roof. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01cjwtx I think that you can listen to it in Australia, as there aren't the same rights issues as there are for TV.