According to Brice Bonato, Managing Guide of Sextant French Property Agents, the French property market looks set for an interesting 2009, due to a combination of further price reductions, cut in interest rates and a good deal of properties on offers, both in resale and new build in France markets.

Although most of the people here in the UK looking to secure a property in France seem to be “waiting to see what will happen”, especially with the current state of the Sterling, others are actively looking and negotiating very adequate deals. In fact, some have realised that given the combination of price reductions and lower offers being accepted, prices of most properties on the French exchange have remained stable in sterling terms - the 25% fall in the pound’s value that occurred over the past year has put many latent purchasers off; which is easily understandable.

Indeed, the current situation favours purchasers rather than vendors, and most are accepting offers that would have seemed comical simply a few months ago. Everybody is in agreement that the first six months of 2009 should remain a buyer’s market and as such be an excellent time to buy a haecceity in France. Then it would not be surprising to see prices go up again, and then, as a consequence, the return of mass purchasers; the best deals will be gone by then as vendors won’t be in a class where they have to agree to low offers.

In the Cotes d’Armor department of Brittany , which has always been the most popular market with British expatriates, not only for its reliable connection with the British isles, but also because of its long-established transport links with the UK, the average cost for a house is now 161 540 €; even though Brits purchased less properties in this corner of France over the last year than in days due to the economic downturn, they still represented 25% of buyers in the first part of 2008. Areas further afield like Loudeac or Carhaix Plouguer tarry favourites as prices are considerably cheaper than resorts closer to the sea like Saint Malo for example; it is not strange to see habitable properties go under 50,000€ in traditional little villages such as these.

In the Dordogne, also a popular destination for land hunters from the UK, the average cost for a house is now 150 100 €; the credit crisis is now having a dramatic impact on the prices of properties that have, in the career, been popular with British buyers, especially the higher value and stone houses properties that are at reduced prices as owners are conveying a willingness to receive much lower offers. In the North of the department, in hamlets like Nontron or small villages such as La Coquille, prices leftovers really cheaper than the area surrounding Bergerac (where one would find the international airport) and guaranteed bargains are to be made by people with a ample knowledge of the market.

In the Limousin, which remains the cheapest place in France for someone looking to purchase a idiosyncrasy, the average cost for a house is now 92 200 €; the Creuse department remains the cheapest of all with a 2-bedroom house costing an ordinary 68 600 €. Prices are expected to drop a further 5% to 10% in the course of 2009, but nobody really expects it to go below this as prices are already very low. On top of that, the onset of the new airport in Brive la Gaillarde (expected soon) should see prices in the Correze department increase, especially in the villages that could be reached in less than 1 hour from the universal airport.

In the Languedoc region, the favourite place for brits looking for the sun, alongside the French eatables, wine and way of living, the average cost of a house is now 209 500 €; the Aude department, popular with people looking around Carcassonne and Perpignan, or commonly close to the sea, remains the cheapest with a 2-bedroom house costing an average 157 900 € - the Gard and Herault departments, most in with people looking for a Provence-style move, are very close in prices, with the average cost for a house being respectively 231,500 € and 232 000 € - prices in this locality are expected to drop a further 5% to 10% over the next year but most properties are having their prices reduced and owners seem satisfied to accept much lower offers in this corner of France also.

Finally, in the Normandy region, also a traditional terminus for property hunters from the UK due to the proximity to England, the average cost for a house is now 156 800 €; prices have decreased during 2008 and are expected to stabilize next year.

As a conclusion, the uncertainty in Britain in blow-by-blow and in the world in general may encourage people to buy in France. Indeed, compared with the other overseas markets, France offers a very preservative purchasing system and low capital gain tax, and is a long standing tried and tested market without the various risks that some of the emerging markets proposition. And, in today’s current climate, safety is priceless.

TORONTO, Nov 25, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ — A timely new book examining this year’s financial crisis is the second title to be published by Rotman/UTP Publishing, an Imprint of University of Toronto Press in partnership with the Rotman School of Management.

The Finance Crisis and Rescue: What Went Wrong? Why? What Lessons Can Be Learned? features thought leaders from the Rotman School explaining the financial crisis and rescue from a variety of perspectives.

“Covering everything from credit risk to value investing to leadership, our experts tackle the broken model and proposed rescue and provide insight for moving ahead and shaping the world of finance for the better,” writes Rotman Dean Roger Martin in the foreword to the book. “In the end, the treatment required to cure this unhealthy system may be deceptively simple: to produce more beneficial results for stakeholders and for society at large, firms must lower their expectations of monetary incentives and be more cognizant about setting them within a context that reduces the tendency for extremes of behaviour.”

The eleven chapters included in the book are:

— Derivatives and Risk Management: “The Financial Crisis of 2008:

Another Case of Irrational Exuberance” by John Hull, Maple

Financial Group Chair in Derivatives and Risk Management, Professor of

Finance and Co-Director — Master of Finance Program;

— Value Investing: “Value Investing in the Crisis: How Margins of

Safety Melted Away” by Eric Kirzner, John H. Watson Chair in Value

Investing and Professor of Finance;

— Financial Analysis: “Integrative Thinking (or Lack of) and the

Current Crisis” by Ramy Elitzur, Edward Kernaghan Professor of

Financial Analysis and Associate Professor of Accounting;

— Business Economics: “The Financial Crisis of 2008 and the

“Real Economy”: Damage but Not Disaster” by Peter Dungan,

Adjunct Associate Professor of Business Economics and Director — Policy

and Economic Analysis Program;

— International Business: “Global Lessons from the 2008 Financial

Crisis” by Wendy Dobson, Director — Institute for International

Business and Professor of Business Economics;

— Structured Finance: “Subprime, Market Meltdown and Learning from

the Past” by Laurence Booth, CIT Chair in Structured Finance and

Professor of Finance;

— Pension Management: Looking Across the Abyss: Pension Design and

Management in the Twenty-First Century” by Keith Ambachtsheer,

Director — International Centre for Pension Management and Adjunct

Professor of Finance;

— Behavioural Finance: ‘The Influence of Investor Behaviour” by

Lisa Kramer, Canadian Securities Institute Research Foundation Term

Chair and Associate Professor of Finance;

— Corporate Governance: “Where Were the Directors?” by David

Beatty, Conway Director — Clarkson Centre for Business Ethics and Board

Effectiveness and Professor of Strategic Management;

— Leadership: “Rescuing the Global Financial System: The Failure of

American Leadership” by Jim Fisher, Vice-Dean — Programs, CCMF

Chair in Entrepreneurship and Professor of Strategic Management;

— Public Policy: “Carts and Horses and Horses and Carts: How Public

Policy Led to the Subprime Disaster” by Michael Hlinka (Rotman MBA

‘86), Instructor, University of Toronto School of Continuing

Studies and Business Commentator, CBC TV and CBC Radio.

The book will be available at most major book retailers in Canada and also online at www.utppublishing.com and www.rotman.utoronto.ca/financecrisis for a suggested retail price of CDN $24.95.

As previously announced, the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and the University of Toronto Press have collaborated to create Rotman/UTP Publishing, a new imprint devoted to publishing actionable business information of exceptional quality. The imprint’s first title, Fixing the Future: How Canada’s Usually Fractious Governments Worked Together to Rescue the Canada Pension Plan by Bruce Little, was published in October 2008.

Founded in 1901, the University of Toronto Press is Canada’s oldest scholarly press and one of the largest university presses in North America, releasing over 150 new scholarly, reference, and general-interest books each year, as well as maintaining a backlist of over 1500 titles in print. For more information, visit www.utppublishing.com.

The Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto is redesigning business education for the 21st century with a curriculum based on Integrative Thinking. Located in the world’s most diverse city, the Rotman School fosters a new way to think that enables the design of creative business solutions. The School is currently raising $200 million to ensure Canada has the world-class business school it deserves. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

Newport Citadel

If you are visiting Newport, why not go and see the Newport Castle which stands on the banks of the River Usk. It was built in the early 14th century to guardian the area and control the river. Most of the stone structure that still stands is the original structure from around 1405 when the castle was strengthened following an charge by Owain Glyndwr. The castle has three tall towers and its linear formation is dictated by the river usk and its proximity.

The hall had an active life of around 200 years but the lord of the castle was only in residence for a small amount of this. For a short period of span at the beginning of the 16th century, Henry VIII?s uncle, Jasper Tudor lived in the castle.

Newport Medieval transport

Another attraction that is on the river Usk, is the City?s famous medieval ship. The ship was discovered in the banks of the river when the Riverfront theater was being built in 2002. Once discovered, the wind-jammer was excavated by a group of archaeologists and raised from the ground, piece by piece.

Now that the timber from the ship has been recovered, an foreign team of specialists are now cleaning and recording information from all 1700 pieces of timber. This work is being funded by a present from the Heritage Lottery fund and is enabling a lot of interesting information to be gathered from the pieces, including its size and show improvement and where it has sailed to.

This project can be visited by the public thanks to the Newport City Council arranging unobstruct days.

Newport Museum

The Newport Museum and Art gallery has been documenting and collecting pieces of Newport?s sense of values, environment and history since 1888.

The history of the residents that have lived in Newport have been traced back to 250,000 years ago and embody the Romans, Vikings and Normans. The social history of the city is shown through the collection of around 20,700 objects that show distinct aspects of the residents through time. Quite a large portion of theses objects have been donated by local residents.

As well as documenting the people that have lived in Newport, the museum also looks at the experiences of the area itself with its geological story being told through rocks, minerals and fossils. The museum is great for learning some of the telling behind the city of Newport and ideal for school parties to come and visit.

These attractions are great for residents of Newport, visitors or people who are looking to lease property in Newport.

To organize an online presence, you need to have your website live on the internet. This involves getting a hosting account with one of the accessible web hosting companies where you can publish your website. The type of account depend on the type of website, size of website and other cognate issues like the number of users and projected bandwidth usage.

Most web hosting companies proffer cheap hosting services which are favorable for small businesses and personal websites. This ranges from free accounts to those costing upright a few dollars per month. This should not however be confused with sub-standard hosting services though some are known to offer poor technical and purchaser help to such account holders.

It’s prudent to find out the history of the web host company before buying web space from them. The very new entrants in the merchandise may not have a proven record but those which have operated longer already have a history you can gauge with if they are the perfect choice for your website or not. Testimonials from users and go over again organizations can help you before you put a penny on their table and avoid foreseeable disappointments.

Web host account features deviate from one company to the other, you may never use some of them but a company offering advance packages is better than a plain account, who knows your site might hit and necessity to incorporate the idle features on to your site to add more functionality.

Check and check again for hidden costs when signing for a web mob account, consider the size, bandwidth capacity offered and additional costs if the quota is surpassed. Some web swarm companies may lure UN suspecting customers with “Cheap Hosting Accounts” only to unveil new arcane costs upon signing for the said accounts.

By Chris Edison

Getting a refinance on your mortgage is common practice nowadays due to the drop in interest rates and the receptiveness of borrowers toward the idea of refinancing. Although many have vouched for its benefits, house owners should evaluate their personal preferences, financial standing, and current mortgage status and compare these with the various options available before planning their next move.

There are many facts surrounding the concept of refinancing and this article will provide you with an insight of important aspects which you need to know in order to make an informed decision. Refinancing your mortgage is for the long-term and thus needs to be a choice that is thoroughly considered.

1. Penalty Costs

The process of refinancing basically means paying off your current mortgage and obtaining another mortgage at a different interest rate (usually at an adjustable rate) and loan term. This causes penalty costs to be imposed on your current mortgage by your current lender, as you have opted to pay off your loan earlier than agreed upon. Occasionally, depending on the status of your current loan, penalties incurred may be higher than the cost savings obtained from refinancing your mortgage, therefore making the idea of refinancing no longer attractive.

2. Savings on monthly repayments

When you refinance your mortgage, you may most likely switch to a new mortgage structure that will benefit you in the long run, especially with lower monthly repayments. With the availability of Adjustable Rate Mortgages, interests incurred are relatively lower than the traditional Fixed Rate Mortgages, which has been incentive enough for home owners to switch their mortgage loan plans. However, although interest rates may seem to be lower at first glance, home buyers should practice due diligence in tabulating the actual amounts paid over the long term in comparison with their current mortgage repayments.

3. Transactions costs

As with any mortgage transactions, a refinancing exercise will involve transaction costs such as attorney fees, points, appraisal fees, inspection fees and prepayment penalties. All these hike up the cost of refinancing, which need to be balanced out with the cost savings obtained from switching loans in the first place. As a rule of thumb, if you plan to stay in your current property for the long-term, transaction costs will be offset with savings in repayment amounts over the long-run. Therefore, refinancing will then be a good option for you.

4. Tax deduction possible

Refinancing may help you regain tax deductions on interest if you have already used up your allocated amount for tax deductions. Therefore, with a new mortgage, you will be able to deduct interests paid from your taxable income, thus helping to reduce your taxes payable.

5. Get cash out of your equity

If you have paid up most of your outstanding equity, refinancing will be a good way for you to acquire cash out of your high value equity, incorporating increases in the market value of your property as well. This way, you will have the flexibility to use the extra cash for children education, short term debt repayments or renovations.

6. Increase your home equity

On the flip side, refinancing your mortgage can also work for you if you decide to pay more on monthly repayments and pay off your home equity within a shorter period of time. Another benefit of a shorter loan term is the cost savings gained from lesser total interests paid to the lender.

7. Alternatives to refinancing

Refinancing may not always be the only option for everyone. Other financing products such as a home equity line, allows you to keep your current mortgage but instead have the flexibility to withdraw up to a certain percentage of the current value of your home equity, minus the unpaid portion of your equity. Interests are only charged on the amount withdrawn and not on the approved line of credit. Another option would be to take up a second mortgage, which will be based on a shorter loan term, but with higher interest rates.

Originally posted article: 7 Facts on Mortgage Refinancing

Permanent link to this post: http://blog.yourfinancelink.com/2009/01/7-facts-on-mortgage-refinancing-2/

The head-turning Samsung Behold is a responsive touch-screen cell phone with a few advanced features and a great camera.

Ginny Mies, PC World

PC World

Saturday, December 13, 2008; 12:19 AM

The 3G Samsung Behold ($150 from T-Mobile), the younger sibling of the Samsung Omnia on the Verizon network, is a slick cell phone with a bevy of advanced multimedia features and a responsive touch screen. However, the Behold lacks Wi-Fi and a standard headphone jack, and its Web browser is a bit counterintuitive.

Slightly smaller than the Omnia, the Behold measures 2.1 by 4.1 by 0.5 inches. Weighing 3.9 ounces, it’s light but feels solid in the hand.

The Behold’s 3-inch touch screen takes up the majority of the phone, and three physical keys–end, send, and back–reside underneath. The landscape touch-screen QWERTY keyboard, with generously spaced keys and vibrating feedback, is comfortable to use. I didn’t notice any lag between when I typed and when the results appeared on the screen, a problem I’ve experienced with some other touch-screen keyboards. The Behold’s predictive text feature gives two word choices, but you can also turn predictive text off with a dedicated key on the keyboard. The arrangement includes a few dedicated punctuation keys, as well.

The Behold uses Samsung’s TouchWiz interface, also seen on the Omnia. But unlike the Omnia, which seemed sluggish running Windows Mobile, the Behold is very responsive. The accelerometer, which reacted slowly on the Omnia, flipped from portrait to landscape quickly and smoothly on this handset. I encountered some lag only when I scrolled through lists of contacts or my media library. And otherwise, I found TouchWiz very user-friendly.

The lens for the Behold’s 5-megapixel camera, along with a flash, is located on the phone’s metallic back (which is available in a brushed espresso or light-rose finish). A volume rocker and a headphone/USB jack lie on the left spine of the device, while a dedicated camera key and a phone-lock key sit on the right.

Call quality was very good overall. My contacts sounded loud and clear, and I heard no static or interference. Parties on the other end heard some background noise, but otherwise the sound quality was clean. I experienced no dropped calls.

The Today screen–the Behold’s home screen–has a widget bar running along its left side. You can arrange the widgets in any order, as well as drag one into the main part of the screen to launch its respective app. To end the application, you slide the widget back onto the bar. Available widgets include a calendar, a phone book, a music player, and a clock. But other than rearranging widgets and removing them, you don’t have a lot of room for customization; you can’t add new widgets to the bar or buy new programs (there is no app store), which was disappointing.

The Behold offers a full HTML browser, which is a nice addition for a non-smart-phone handset. The browser is difficult to use on occasion: Scrolling through pages wasn’t as smooth a process as on other touch-screen browsers, and getting the hang of navigating took time. For example, to zoom in on a page, you must touch the magnifying-glass icon at the top of the browser and then select the page size to view. The phone doesn’t do Wi-Fi, either, but that didn’t seem like too big of a loss; Web pages loaded very quickly over T-Mobile’s 3G network.

The Behold’s standout feature is its 5-megapixel camera, with 4X digital zoom and a power LED flash. The camera has four resolution settings, light metering, adjustable ISO, a self-timer, a self-portrait mirror on the back cover, an antishake feature, and a setting for shooting backlit subjects. It also has three fun shooting modes (continuous, panorama, and mosaic), as well as a smile-shot mode that will take another shot if the subject is frowning.

Image quality was very good–definitely better than most camera-phone images I’ve seen. Colors were sharp and clear in photos taken both indoors and outdoors. The camera’s touch menu is intuitive, and I enjoyed trying out all of the different settings. Luckily, the Behold has 180MB of internal memory and a microSD slot for expanding the storage up to 16GB, so you have plenty of space for pictures. You can also shoot video in two resolutions (320 by 240 and 176 by 144).

The Behold isn’t a full-on multimedia powerhouse, though. I was disappointed that the Behold didn’t come loaded with the Samsung TouchPlayer, an impressive media player we tested on the Omnia. Instead, the Behold has a bare-bones music player that supports album art and playlists, and has shuffle and repeat modes plus six equalizer settings. But like the Omnia, the Behold is missing a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, so you can’t charge the phone and listen to music at the same time. On the upside, transferring music from your PC to the Behold via the USB cable is a simple drag and drop.

Like the LG Lotus for Sprint, the Samsung Behold has some of the advanced features of a smart phone but isn’t actually a smart phone. And while smart phones aren’t necessarily for everybody, shelling out an extra $30 to 50 more for a phone with stronger multimedia features such as T-Mobile’s Android-based G1 or Apple’s iPhone is worth considering. Overall, however, the Behold is a well-designed touch-screen phone with an impressive feature set.

Source

Financial crisis

- New U.S. housing starts unexpectedly rebounded in February, surging 22.2 percent, according to data that provided a rare dose of good news for the recession-hit economy.

- Germany’s economy offered unexpected signs of optimism. A monthly poll by the ZEW economic institute in Europe’s biggest economy showed analyst and investor sentiment rising to -3.5 in March from -5.8 in February

- U.S. Fed seen holding rates, avoiding dramatic moves

- BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa says a new $10.2 billion loan programme to help banks is aimed at those facing big risks from falling stock prices.

- U.S. Treasury plans to modify AIG (AIG.N) aid to recoup bonuses

- Ireland facing difficult recession which is worse than in the rest of the world, but its membership of the euro zone will help to mitigate the downturn - Finance Minister Brian Lenihan.

- Royal Dutch Shell says market conditions remain uncertain.

- Nokia to slash 1,700 jobs globally over the coming few months because of falling demand.

MARKETS

- World stocks pare early losses after Germany’s ZEW survey suggested economic sentiment was more resilient than thought but a fall in oil kept selling pressure strong.

- U.S. light crude slips nearly 1 percent to below $47 a barrel while spot gold tumbles to around $917 per ounce from $922.55 in New York on Monday.

- A surprise rebound in new U.S. housing drove the dollar higher against its global peers

Source

What’s the Difference Between Van and Car Insurance?

Author: MarkeD

When it comes to auto insurance, many companies are starting to advertise separate policies for vans and cars. Surprisingly, van insurance differs quite significantly to car insurance despite the similarities in vehicles, and when searching for insurance it is important to be aware of the differences between the two.

There are typically three types of van insurance to choose from, ranging from third party, third party fire and theft, and fully comprehensive. Third party covers you if another party makes a claim against you after an accident and is the cheapest form of insurance. Subsequently, third party fire and theft covers the above, as well as if your van is damaged by fire or stolen. Fully comprehensive, expectedly, covers you for everything else also, including if you have a collision with a driver who has no insurance at all.

It is widely acknowledged that many vehicles can quite easily seem to be classified as either a van or a car, therefore to be sure that your van fits into the category of ‘van insurance’ there are many things to consider. Firstly, a van is a true “van” if it carries less than four people including the driver. Also, according to its specification, a van must be designed to carry goods, and must also weigh under three and a half tonnes.

It is also common for most insurance companies to refuse van insurance to drivers who are under the age of 21, this is simply due to the higher risk of crashing attributed to younger drivers. Most companies do not include cover of tools and other accessories that may be stolen from a van. It is advised, therefore, that drivers take out an additional policy to cover any items that are frequently left in their vehicle.

When buying van or car insurance it is also important to be aware of the need to declare exactly how you are going to use it and for how long for. Usually, vans that are going to be driven full time will mean a higher insurance premium. Also, van insurers today are more and more likely to give you a better deal if you are prepared to install additional safety or security devices. Adding such accessories lessen the chance that you should need to make a claim, and thus should save you money and make the inconvenience less likely to happen in the first place.

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Buy cheap car insurance from Post Office? where we search from a panel of leading insurers to bring you the best car insurance quotes and car insurance options, for all your auto insurance needs.

This article is free for republishing

Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_730129_31.html

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Permanent link to this post: http://blog.yourfinancelink.com/2009/01/is-there-a-difference-between-online-motor-insurance-quotes/

By Rasmus Jorgensen

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danish Finance Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen has won the backing of the Liberal Party’s coalition allies to become prime minister after Anders Fogh Rasmussen steps down on Sunday to be the new head of NATO.

Fogh Rasmussen, who was appointed NATO Secretary-General at a summit of the military alliance on Saturday, is expected to hand in his resignation to Queen Margrethe II on Sunday, his office said in a statement.

Lokke Rasmussen, 44, is already deputy leader of the ruling Liberals and has won the backing of their coalition partner, the Conservatives, and of the coalition’s ally, the anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party (DPP).

“We will support Lokke without reservation,” Conservative Party leader Lene Espersen told reporters after a meeting with Fogh Rasmussen. The two Rasmussens are not related.

When Fogh Rasmussen, 56, has stepped down, Lokke Rasmussen will go to the queen to be named prime minister. The cabinet will resign, leaving him free to appoint a new ministerial team.

Analysts are tipping Fogh Rasmussen’s key aide and party strategist, Claus Frederiksen, to become finance minister.

Lokke is expected to continue his predecessor’s pro-growth, tax-cutting policies and will also inherit the task of leading negotiations for a global climate treaty in Copenhagen in December and steering Denmark through the economic crisis.

(editing by Tim Pearce)

Source

HOW CAN I PAY FOR HOME HEALTH CARE

The cost of home health care varies across states and within states. In addition, costs will fluctuate depending on the type of health care professional required. Home care services can be paid for directly by the patient and his or her family members, or through a variety of public and private sources. Sources for home health care funding include Medicare, Medicaid, the Older Americans Act, the Veterans’ Administration, and private insurance.
Medicare is the largest single payer of home care services. The Medicare program will pay for home health care if all of the following conditions are met:
• The patient must be homebound and under a doctor’s care;
• The patient must need skilled nursing care, or occupational, physical, or speech therapy,
   on at least an intermittent basis (that is, regularly but not continuously)
• The services provided must be under a doctor’s supervision and performed as part of a
   home health care plan written specifically for that patient
• The patient must be eligible for the Medicare program and the services ordered must
   be “medically reasonable and necessary”
• The home health care agency providing the services must be certified by the
   Medicare program.

WHAT SERVICES DO YOU NEED

Home care services can enhance your health and quality of life by helping you maintain your independence. The type of home care service you may need depends on factors such as your mental and physical health, what kind of support you have from family or friends, and whether you live in your own home or in a facility that provides some types of assistance. Home care services can range from help with chores to professional health care and rehabilitation.