Will the EX Rate ever go back up?

Hi All,

Well, we are taking the plunge and are moving to Spain around September/October this year.

We will be putting our UK house on the market ASAP (hopefully 3 or 4 weeks) in an attempt to get as much £££'s as possible before the UK housing market goes down the drain - again!!! We should be comming out with a rock-bottom amount of £250k, hopefully more like £270K if we can sell the house for it's current value.

Anyways, here is my question - will the exchange rate EVER go back up? Every day or so I take a look at the currency markets and the rate keeps going down - currently at 1.266 - which equates to 79p. When we bought our 1st property in Spain back in August 2006, we had an exchnage rate of 1.4747, which would have meant that our £250K would be worth €368,675. Now with the rate being so low we will only get €316,500 - that's a staggering €52,175 less!!!!

So, it looks like when we do sell we should keep our money in the UK in £'s and wait until the rate goes back up, but will it go back up?

If anyone answers this with either a positive or negative response and they get it right, then I'd like them to choose my lottery numbers!!!!

Irene

Irene

I was taking the approach of dusting off my crystal ball

Noreen

Watching the news last night they were talking about buying your holiday money. The advice was to buy it now, although it supposedly will be very up and down for the next few months. It is regularly ducking and diving between 1.26 and 1.28 at the moment.

Mark

I suppose the question should have been "why has the rate dropped so drastically over the last 3 months or so and will it ever go back up".

Roberto - We already have a 2 bed, 2 bath duplex out in Duquesa so we won't need to rent. However we would like a 3 bed, 2 bath (or 3) Townhouse with a private garden sooner rather than later because of the dog and family requirements.

Irene & Alan - Maybe I should pick your lottery numbers for you, as every week I play Wednesday and Saturday Lotto and the Euromillions - and every week I win at least once - well, the small wins - but better to win small than not at all!

In that case TechNoApe, you can pick my lotto numbers too.

Roberto, I was thinking exactly the same thing, come in TJ222

So why can't we just join the Euro??? 

I posted the following in another thread and didn't get a reply, so if TJ222 appears in this one he might just answer my question and explain.

TJ222,

As someone who works in the city and has knowledge of the financial markets, can you help someone with a simplistic view of the Euro like me.

Why doesn't the UK join the Euro, as far as I can see it would make things a lot simpler for people when travelling into Europe.  The international unit of currency as far as me and my aquaintances are concerned, is the 'Pint of Beer'.

Friends would travel far and wide and on their return the usual question from the Ladies is "What was it like" and "Was it Sunny?" and from the Blokes "How much was a Pint?"

From their response you can judge whether it was a rich or poor country they had just returned from.  Now, if everyone had the Euro, this would make the quick mental arithmetic involved to change Euros into Sterling redundant and give a far more accurate view on the state of a nations economy.

"One Euro and 39 Cents" is more meaningful than "A pint? about 2 quid."  We can always have the queens head on one side and Isambard kingdom Brunel on the other for the Euro sceptics.

Or are there wider implications?  A simple explanation please.

Kelju

So why can't we just join the Euro??? 

At what price? Join it at the wrong time and goods will be far more expensive tan they should be. Also take into account the Bank of England would not be able to set our interest rates during times of need, it would be done by the ECB. I think we as a country have given too much to Europe, currency would be the last straw! As annoying as it is, historically I believe Sterling has always bounced back providing a much better rate in the long run. Yes, it would be great to to not pay currency transfer fees to move monies across Europe, yes we could probably pay our Spanish mortgages from a UK bank account, but we are not an island for nothing .

Mark

At what price. Well said, Marksfish,

My sister is in Holland and I have close friend in Germany. Till now they still remember the nightmare the day their currency converted to EU. Overnight all of their earning and saving dramatically shirked. At mean time everything in shop becomes more expensive. Do we really want that? Or we just sit tight and let market economy take its cause.

I personally think it would be a great idea if the UK took the Euro.

Most of the inhabitants would be used to it anyway..........

Mark-it used to be an island,it has a nice big funnel(sorry tunnel) attached to it now linking it with the rest of europe..........

Markfish

I remember when Decimilisation came in during the 70's and it did indeed push up prices, I wasn't quite a teenager and the biggest impact on me as I can remember is that when i went to the Fair I only got 100 goes on the Penny Slots instead of the 240 I used to for a £1.

With regards to interest rates if we join the Euro, hasn't the Euribor always been lower than the Bank of England rate?

My question is regarding further implications (if there are any) rather than the Island and "...we will loose our identity..." mentality.  I don't pretend to understand why we should or should not join the Euro, I just think that it would make things simpler if we did. 

After all, why not be a part of Europe, join in fully and help to formulate its direction and policies rather than sit on the perimiter looking in and tut tutting about the shape of Bananas and having to weigh them in Kilos!

Kelju

My biggest gripe about the whole Europe argument is that we obey all the narrow minded rules (take the bananas for example) thrown at us by Brussels; and France, Germany, et al choose what they want to abide by. I'm sorry, but I am British and (currently) proud of it. I don't want to live in a watered down Britain that is a part of the United States of Europe, in fact I would prefer we left Europe altogether (but that is another discussion for another day). That said, if/ when I finally move to Spain to live I would want it to be where I can indulge in the local customs, and join in the language, a smaller version of Britain is not what I would be looking for.

I am not quite old enough to remember decimalisation, but I do know that in Spain and Italy, prices seemed to escalate greatly with the Euros introduction. Do we really want the price rise here as well?

Mark

I'm proud to be British - Welsh by the grace of God

However, I must say that this country is going down 'the tubes'. And I think even more so since GB got into No. 10.

Since starting this thread I've looked at the historical data on the ex rate and as soon as GB got in - the rate shot down - I mean the same way as a birck doesn't float when you throw it in at the deep end of the pool!!! We are talking greased poo of a shovel slide here.

I'm not going to start talking politics, but GB in No.10 is the worst thing since sliced bread and that's why I'm glad we're off to Spain - because the way things are going with the amount of immigrants FLOODING into the UK, the economy on the worst slow down ever, way to much cheap Euorpean imports, the housing market due for a small crash, an inflation rate about to get way higher than they can control and the world wide credit crunch comming our way thanks to the US of A.

By the way, the paragraph above IS why the ex rate is so bad - I've done a lot of research over the last few days - not that I needed to as the research only bore the truth that I had expected all along.

Oh, and lets not forget the crisis in the middle east which has been going on for over a quater of a century even BEFORE the travesties of Afghanistan and Iraq, which is and has been driving the oil prices ever skyward, whilst oil and coal reserves start to dwindle within which could start the next global conflict as superpowers try and 'safeguard' their own requirements.

Hmm. seems 'them thar hills' Spanish wise are a good move after all.

I remember Gordon Brown stating that if the Euro ever levelled at 1.31 then he would seriously consider joining.

It seems like the Euro is going to sit around this rate for some time as the world wide economic doom spreads like a fog throughout the modern world.

I was listening to an analyst at the weekend state that the UK will be the last to pull itself from any recession,the reasons being that the USA dependency levels ie the percentage of taxes it has to pay to support its healthcare sytsem and hangers on is 9% where as the UK perncentage is 42%.

Also that the figures released on immigration in the UK has actually had a detremental effect on the economy rather that what was previously stated estimating that all the new foreign workers were actually having a positive effect on the country.

I too was very patriotic and to a point still am very proud of a couple of things,i think the armed forces are something to be proud of and i still get goose bumps when i hear "god save the queen".

Without running the risk of starting a full scale war and purely out of interest only what are British people still patriotic about and proud of?

I think people will find it very difficult without harking back to the past to find something to wave the flag about,i hope i am wrong but it seems that in the last 10-15 years the decline has hastened at such a rate i fear for the next ten.

I personally think it would be a good idea to introduce the euro to bring a level playing field to Europe, the days when the UK was an Island race dissapeared as borders fell throughout the World.

Without running the risk of starting a full scale war and purely out of interest only what are British people still patriotic about and proud of?

Time for a new thread methinks .

Mark

fire away.........

I am here to play devils advocate....

i am ex pat who is waiting to be proved wrong............