All Blog Posts (783)

The mortgage indemnity scheme originally intended for first-time buyers is to be extended to all UK buyers of new homes at up to £500,000.

Housing minister Grant Shapps has renamed the scheme New Buy Guarantee, and it is to be launched officially in March.

The NewBuy Guarantee scheme is welcome news for aspiring home owners, significantly reducing the deposit needed to…

So that’s ‘Blue Monday’ out of the way (hooray!) Either yesterday or last Monday, depending on who you listen to, was supposedly the most depressing day of the year thanks to the dark mornings and evenings, credit card bills from our Christmas and sales spending sprees, and the dreaded tax return deadline and payment date (boo!)…

Recent figures have revealed that more families have satellite television than life insurance – in fact half of families have satellite TV but just 40% have life insurance.

The report also found only 13% of families had critical illness cover while 14% had insurance for their mobile phone.

Similarly 13% had taken out an extended warranty on electrical items, more than…

With so many choices it’s hard to know what blend of today’s diversified marketing channels will drive your business. Keeping a constant eye on tracking & testing out new routes & propositions are obviously vital but where to start?

Here are 10 marketing tactics that I see consistently appear in the plans of the fastest growing companies. 

1.    Associate with someone…

Jimi Hendrix , Diana Princess of Wales, Barry White , Bob Marley and Jill Dando... What have these people got in common ?

Well other than the obvious that they are all deceased, the common factor is that they all died either without making a will or failed to update it before dying.

Jimi Hendrix’s family squabbled for years over his estate as he died…

Tonight is Twelfth Night – so the holiday season is now officially over, the Christmas decorations are back in the loft, and it’s time to put your networking shoes on and get back out there... and post your blogs, events and offers on Networking in Surrey!

You’ll find hundreds of events on…

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) absence management annual survey report recently highlighted that stress is the second biggest cause of short term absences and one of the leading causes of all long-term absences for non-manual workers.

It also highlighted a perhaps previously unknown fact that women are nearly three times more likely to take stress-related absence than men,…

This was originally published on my blog http://fjrcom.wordpress.com/ but I thought it a good introduction to the type of marketing help we offer to local businesses ie not full of jargon & something you can have a go at yourself!

Today the question is not whether you should have a website but rather, is it working hard to attract your…

Did you overspend on your credit card this Christmas? Is the New Year bank balance filling you with dread? Don’t panic! Here are my survival tips for 2012.

1. Don’t ignore the post and leave your bank or credit card statements unopened. The last thing you should do is bury your head in the sand and ignore your finances.
2. If you are having trouble…

Mortgage Market Review

You will have read over recent days about something called the MMR ( Mortgage Market Review) which is the FSA’s attempt , before they disappear into the sunset, at preventing a return of the risky mortgage lending seen in boom times, by ensuring that common sense standards continue to apply in future.

Below is a summary of the…

We wish all 793 (as of today) Members of our NiS community a very relaxing and enjoyable Christmas and New Year break.

Not surprisingly, you won’t find many featured EVENTS on NiS in the run up to the holiday weekend – but most of the…

Buying property is now more cost-effective than it has ever been compared to renting, proving cheaper in 47 out of 50 British towns, compared to 40 out of 50 this time last year, according to research.

A study showed that renting is 15% more expensive on average than owning across the country, up from a 10% premium last year.

It examined the prices and rents of 78,000…

The outcry emanating from Westminster and other bastions of economic responsibility might lead the taxpaying citizen to think that sponsorship and event marketing is ineffective or even worse—wasteful . But as a fellow taxpayer, and as someone who has earned a living consulting with companies on how to "drive their business through sport," I can assure you that sponsorship and event marketing are not approached recklessly. The fact is, when properly planned,…

A proposed EU Directive threatens to severely damage the private rented housing sector according to one of the largest landlord bodies, report the RLA.

The draft directive is aimed at tackling irresponsible lending on mortgages following property booms and busts in countries such as Spain and Ireland Under its provisions, when assessing the ability of the applicant to afford mortgage repayments, lenders will not be able to…

The government recently announced its backing of a mortgage indemnity scheme that will allow higher loan to value lending for buyers of new build properties.

The full details of the scheme won’t be finalised until the spring, but we have compared the new scheme with Firstbuy, the government backed shared equity scheme announced in this year’s Budget.

We…

Hi,

After thinking about it for ages, I have decided to create a family tree.  I have some initial information, but I want to go back further.  

I have looked at numerous websites but they seem quite expensive, I only want the basic information not the certificates etc.  Has anyone else created a family tree? and what would you recommend?  My surname is Spencer and my…

The Bank of England has said that mortgage interest rates could increase next year, as lenders pass on the increased costs of wholesale funding.

Its Financial Stability Report, published today, said that, since 2009, the profitability of new mortgage lending has reduced, because lenders have failed to keep rates in line with higher wholesale funding and other costs.

With…

Image copyright Shanghai Web Designers

Hi all,

It will be interesting to see what happens on the social media, blogs, search engine, web design front.

Found this article and wondered what your thoughts were?

Blogging

Quantity vs quality – in 2011 people blogged less often, but when they blogged they wrote long articles. With the new freshness algorithm Google just introduced, the process might get reversed, as now the latest articles are more likely to show up on top…