Member Info for strictlybricks

Thanks for adding me to the blog - hopefully, I can add some worthwhile commentary.
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Denid, I've just sorted a blog invite for you, along with a separate email to explain a few things, so please let me know here if they don't arrive...?

Strictly

Looks like none of us are "out on the weekend". Sorry!

How can I get access to the blog?
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Denid, as it happens, I'm due out for a paddle up the Yealm today, and a pub nosebag afterwards, which I'm really looking forward to, but that's not until after lunch.

Re the blog, it's a private one and requires an invite to join from the blog itself to gain access...

I set it up around six years ago to help the many of the family & friends who've followed me into this investment malarkey over the years having seen how well it's gone...

In more recent years, I've also invited a few people from firstly this LSE chat and also one or two who have followed Bogdan/Vlad across occasionally from the Telegraph to here...

I've mentioned him because of the holdings you've listed - they're similar to his so I'm guessing you've read some of his prolific comments in the Telegraph..?

And that's where I bumped into him (in the virtual sense), when he wrote a considered comment last year late February or early March about the coming covid iceberg and I'd thought "Bl..dy hell, I could have written that myself as I'm exactly in agreement with it!" so I copied & pasted it into the blog and so Bogdan because famous there on Strictly Bricks.

Having read what you've written, Denid, my instinct is that I'm happy to send you an invite (I'm not looking to open some sort of floodgate here, mind...).

I'll need an email address to send an invite to, though, so if you have an old one to use temporarily might be an idea as I wouldn't want to put my main email address up in a public forum like this - although that might not bother you of course... :-)

Strictly

Don't bring Neil Young into it..!

Sain.... are you living abroad...?

Or is it that you can't sleep...? :-)

Strictly

PS.

I hadn't intended to sign off twice on the previous comment... just a senior moment on my part...

I haven't got a stutter....

Honest...!

Strictly

"Whoa, that's conviction."
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Denid, as the name implies, I only invest in house builder shares, and that's what I've been doing for the past twenty years and it's my sole source of income (apart from an el basic OAP these days) and also is for a number of others who've followed me into this game...

If the house builder shares weren't there, there are a few other companies I feel I could safely invest in though expect significantly lower long term returns...

But 90% plus of the FTSE100 scares the pants off me - I see it as Kipling's "Trap set by knaves for fools"

Have you been at this ~ I mean, investing for yourself ~ for long...?

I ask because you've only just started commenting here but, at the same time, it was many years before I ventured a view on LSE chat...

Strictly

Strictly

"Am I missing anything? Anyone else got any thoughts?"
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Denid, if you scroll back through the chat here, you should find plenty of discussion about this between me and Oi Oi...

But, for what it's worth, my holdings are currently 78% Bellway, 22% Inland.

That's it, nothing else....

Strictly

"Surprised that there has been relatively little merger activity in the sector"

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And let's all pray that it remains that way...!

How's it going with the estate agents then...?

You're always welcome to comment on that on the blog - we do have a number of people investing in "other", for better or for worse, these days...

And you can see how everyone is doing in Strictly Wacky Races and, let's face it, there's a full spectrum of outcomes there for the year to date, but at least you can benchmark against how you're doing yourself...

Strictly

"Anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to what’s going on in the world of economics & finance should surely be aware that there is a wall of cheap money looking for a home these days…?
Especially when there are cheap opportunities around…"

Dick Dastardly or Lazy Luke could be throwing some oil and tacks down on the track as we speak!

I guess if that happens those Tandoori prawns would never taste so sweet
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Sain, are you trying to impress by demonstrating that you are actually reading the blog AND paying attention...?

I've got another post nearly finished that covers the Inland situation and my thoughts about it, which should be up on the blog imminently, so you might like to add a comment there when it arrives...?

I'm mindful that several there, and especially Bogdan/Vlad ~ that great fan of Henry the Hybrid ~ don't see Inland in a similar light to me...

Hmmm... I guess we'll have to wait and see what the Fat Lady and the Captain each think about that...?

And while I'm more than happy to have bought Paul his ruby for this year as he's had to buy me enough over previous years, hopefully I'll be the comeback kid next year...?

After all, I reckon I've got to earn your seeming faith in me... :-)

Strictly

"Still plenty of time for The Prof to come in for a late rattle in Wacky Races and burst through"
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Sain, I've just conceded defeat to Paul, aka The Ant Hill Mob, in the annual curry contest last week (the first time he's beaten me) and bought him the tandoori king prawns he coveted, and he's also got to be odds on to win Strictly Wacky Races too this year so, even though it's very kind of you to express such faith in me, don't hold yer breath on that and definitely don't put any money on it... :-)

Strictly

Yep - totally agree with your sentiments strictly bricks. I'm heavily in RDW too (the only other housebuilder I'm in).
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I'm currently 79% Bellway, 21% Inland, having sold out of Redrow late last month following the sellout rumour ~ I tend to ignore these things and go purely on perceived value ~ which took them just below Bellway, IMO, in terms of value....

No other shares held...

Unfortunately, from my point of view, Mr Market has been keeping Bellway and Redrow neck and neck in perceived value this year, so, if I want to trade for advantage, I've necessarily had to do it on rather thin round trip gains....

Hard to credit when I consider how far out of whack he is on some of the other house builder shares...

I think we both require some patience here....?

Strictly

Wrong Horse?Today 09:42

"Really beginning to think I've backed the wrong horse"

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Oi Oi, clearly, as things stand this year so far, it's hard to argue with that sentiment....

And I write as someone also holding a shed-load of Inland shares and, because of that, I'm being duly hammered in the investing competition we have on our blog, Strictly Wacky Races.

Sadly, neither you nor I drink with the Captain, who, as we know, is never there when you need him, so we are where we are, I'm afraid...

However, if we didn't have access to what had happened to share prices this year so far before today, but only today's price along with the long term company performance figures for the different house builders, we could see that Inland is well up there near the other successful builders with an average ROE of nearly 16%, just three percent or so behind the best value to be found in the big boys which, IMO, is Bellway and Redrow.

And it's significantly ahead of Henry Boot (I have to get that in, just in case Vladimir/Bogdan happens to read this), which is on 10%, and well ahead, out of sight, of Battersea, aka Bovis, aka Vistry, which is on a stomach churning 5.6%.

Well, stomach churning if you've been holding their shares continually over the eight years... this year, so far, Mr Market has come well off his meds on that one.

And yet, Battersea is on a PBV of 1.7, Bellway and Redrow between 1.2 and 1.3, and Inland is only on 0.6.

I would say this puts Inland into Ben Graham "Cigar butt" territory, though I make no prediction about where the price might go from here in the short to medium term and I, too, am sitting here a tad nervously, awaiting the full time whistle for this year to see if they do in fact achieve what they've suggested they will when they were handing out the oranges at half time.

Strictly

Strictly - I am sure that I have spoken to you before somewhere!
Surely - 'Vladimir, stop calling me Shirley!' - the fund managers who hold RDW would realise that 900p would be far too cheap. I know that fund managers have a poor record of realising the value of what they hold in this kind of potential situation, but RDW, with all that consistency of equity growth, 900p! surely not?

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Valerie, sorry, Vlad, if we take stock market ownership of companies as being essentially the fund managers, then sadly they have serious previous for these situations...

The fund managers sold Debs to private equity at a bargain basement price in 2003, the PE boys stripped out all those splendid high street freeholds for leaseback, then still sold the shell back to the fund managers just three years later for more than they paid for it having also trousered £1.2 billion in divs...

And didn't Debs do well thereafter...?

Typing this, I've got the theme tune from the Muppets swirling round in my head....

That probably tells you something...?

And why do you suppose it might be different this time if it happens...?

It seems to me that either these fund managers live in some sort of parallel universe to the likes of you and me when it comes to assessing value, or that they're incompetent, or that there's something darker at play that we're not privvy to...?

But what do I know ~ I'm just a humble private investor, out in the boondocks down here on Dartmoor....? :-)

Strictly

I'd be very surprised to see Redrow taken out - myriad reasons but not least because it's a massively expensive way of buying land.
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And a seriously cheap way of buying long term high return on equity & growth....

And that's my concern, Oi Oi, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed it doesn't happen ~ as it's very bad news for us investors if one of the most invest-able players in the sector is taken out...

But no doubt it will be what it will be, and we, as minnows in the investing world, just have to suck it up....

Sadly...

Strictly

Oi Oi,

Ah, apologies for the double reply (well, three now, really...!) as my first effort went through, after a delay, while I was typing the second attempt.. :-)

Strictly

It's been very quiet in here (on here?) recently; is that because everyone is making a mint elsewhere, or perhaps because there's literally nothing to say about INL? :)
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Oi Oi, I did just write you a reply to this here but the system didn't seem to like it so it evaporated before appearing and I don't want to type it all out again....

But the short story was that it seems to me that we'll probably have to wait for the full time whistle to find out how Inland are doing and how that compares to the rather upbeat half time talk, and, I suspect, take a view from there...?

In the meantime, there has been some discussion about this on the blog in recent times, but you may not have picked up on that...?

Strictly

"It's been very quiet in here (on here?) recently; is that because everyone is making a mint elsewhere, or perhaps because there's literally nothing to say about INL? :)"
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Oi Oi, I suspect we've all been a tad disappointed by Inland's half time whistle...?

However, they have talked up their full year prospects and, personally speaking and having taken quite a relative knock on the share price (relative to Bellway and Redrow, that is, as I'm entirely unbothered about short term share price movements of themselves), I haven't moved across any of what is a substantial holding in Inland shares in the meantime.

As I'm seeing it, the likelihood is that we'll have to see to what degree management's expressed optimism manifests into reality around the end of the year at the full time whistle.

If they end up achieving the company performance they've implied then that's one thing ~ irrespective of how quickly or otherwise the share price catches up seeing as price is an entirely different thing to value.

However, if it seems that Inland are morphing into Vicky Pollard, well, that's quite another matter, and I guess may require a view to be taken at that time....?

All depending, of course, on what that old nutter, Mr Market, has been up to in the meantime...?

We have discussed this to some extent on the blog in recent times but perhaps you haven't picked up on that...?

Strictly

Demos,

As you and I have discussed elsewhere, it's much more important & useful to be working off an estimated updating BVPS each month, and each intervening ex div date, than it is to try to get the forecast EPS down to the last penny...

This estimate generally provides a far more accurate BVPS, and therefor also PBV, at any time ~ usually within about 2%, based on experience ~ than working off of either last year's BVPS or the forecast one for the current year (which will, of course, be about three months' out of date anyway by the time it's given with the year's figures...).

Strictly

Dimi,

There's where house prices could go and where they will go...

I have no view on the latter, not being the proud owner of a crystal ball nor a regular drinking companion of Captain Hindsight...

But the former is interesting, and low interest rates can change everything...

At first glance, it would seem that house price multiples couldn't go higher for first time buyers but, actually, they could.... potentially....

I'm self-confessedly a bit of an anorak for looking at things through a spreadsheet, and I've played with the numbers on this in the past.

Take two mortgage interest rates, 10% and 1%, a bit excessive, perhaps, at each end, in order to emphasise my point, but not by that much if you look back to the '70's when I had my first mortgage.

And apologies for a lot of numbers here, but the point they illustrate, IMO, is interesting.

At 10% interest rate, annual repayments on a 25 year mortgage equate to 11.02% of the amount borrowed.

So, if you reduce payments by just 9.2%, you'll be paying for 100 years as by then you're virtually only covering interest.

In other words, at 10%, a twenty five year mortgage is right on the edge of the maximum borrowing period that makes any sense.

However, at 1%, you could reduce your payments by 65% to make it a 100 year mortgage.

Which is way different.

You could double the size of the mortgage, and it would still be do-able....

And houses are surely built to last more that 25 years, even if 100 years may be stretching it.

And in the same way that the Nationwide graph gives the big picture on house prices, so does the one on the link below when it comes to interest rates.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/700-year-decline-of-interest-rates/

They've actually been falling overall for 700 years, long before quantitative easing was even a twinkle in Rishi's eye...

So, ignoring the huge spikes in between, can you see anything likely to get in the way of that long term trend?

Which may have a dark outcome for fiat currency, but all that's some way above my pay grade...

Hopefully you can see that I'm not making any predictions here, as I acknowledge that I live in the world of track records and likelihoods rather than one of certainties...

But track records do tend to prove quite reliable, though.... :-)

The other possibility, of course, is of rampant wage inflation.... just because we haven't seen that in decades doesn't necessarily mean it ain't about to make a comeback..?

Strictly

For anyone interested in the longer term historical perspective on this, to see where we are as a nation on house prices relative to the price trend since 1983, go on to the Nationwide's website and, in the "UK Series", click on "UK House Prices Adjusted for Inflation".

The graph there clearly shows that average house price growth has been 2.5% a year net of inflation and that, right now, house prices are quite substantially below the trend line.

In other words, if the Nationwide's graph (which is, after all, based purely on the numbers rather than upon the idle speculation of pundits...) is anything to go by, houses are due to go up in price from here not down.

Though that does not, of course, preclude the possibility that they may still go down in the short term.

Oh that life was so easy...!

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/about/house-price-index/download-data#xtab:uk-series

Strictly