Category: Housing

Nov ’25: Coastal Folly loan repaid

FIRE v London1 Comment

Trump dominated the headlines again. This time partly due to some very biased editing by the BBC of a Panorama show about Trump before the US election.

There was also the omnipresent UK Budget. Which has had more than enough coverage. I did a ‘damage assessment‘ at the time and haven’t revised/updated my view since.

Back at home, the Christmas season started early. I found myself dining at two of London’s impressive skyscraper restaurants in one week.

I also managed a trip up to Oxford, where the Christmas lights were out in force.

Other London highlights included a performance of the Crucible in South London, and a dinner at George’s club in Mayfair.

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The stocks & shares ‘property’ portfolio, one year on

FIRE v London4 Comments

A year ago this week I sold my Modern Flat. And shortly afterwards, I reinvested £500k into a liquid stocks/shares portfolio with a property-like mandate. One year on, here’s a short review of the performance.

The portfolio has been set up to spit out £2000 pcm, which I take into general household expenses. This amounts to a 4.8% withdrawal yield on the £500k initial portfolio value.

What’s happened?

I ran out of money once, by about £100. As it happened, when that happened I ended up receiving a dividend on the 31st of the month which meant I had *not* in fact ran out of money, but by then I had already lent the portfolio the money to cover. I charged the portfolio £50 of interest costs for the trouble.

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Swapping a rental property for a share portfolio

FIRE v London11 Comments

Having sold my London rental flat, what was I to do next?

I’ve paid the £20k+ transaction fees. I have paid off the mortgage. I set aside the amount to pay my Capital Gains Tax, a liability which needs to be settled within 60 days. I moved some of the remaining equity into other investments and portfolios.

However, one thing is missing. The property rental income. I used to use my property rental income to help pay for household costs; rent was received into my joint household account and was swallowed up there by miscellaneous household bills, cleaning costs, gardening expenses etc. Until I sold the flat, the flat’s service charge and occasional running costs would have come out of that account too. These days, only my Dream Home in London is paid for out of this account – I have opened a different account for the Coastal Folly which I run separately (and is funded separately).

So, I decided to ringfence £500k of the equity that I released for a ‘property proxy’ portfolio. This portfolio will be a worked example of the argument that a stocks/bonds portfolio can be a valid, and better, alternative to a property investment. I will report on progress occasionally on this blog. The portfolio will essentially be an income portfolio, designed for somebody is used to having regular property rental income coming in, and wanting inflation protection.

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