Strong Euro –> Potentially rich lenina

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Since the £ has now fallen to under £1.14 against the Euro, I’m seriously considering selling the Italy house next year. The problem of course is that it would mean (potentially) some more investment right now, to get it looking good from the inside (it’s had the roof repaired a couple of months ago where I already lost ££ due to the weak exchange rate).

If I sold it now for, say, €110,000 (which is roughly what I think I could get), and transferred that money to my UK account, I’d have made £96,500!!

Whereas if the rate was still £1 = €1.50, I would only have made £73,300.

I mean it’s still nice to have the house and so on, but I’m very tempted at the moment to at least try and sell it via an agency. Even if it doesn’t fetch the anticipated €110,00 – given the strong Euro, I can’t make a loss either way 🙂 . And it would be nice to have a decent chunk of money in the bank (naturally it wouldn’t be the entire amount – but whatever was left once the mortgage was paid off).

I’ll definitely park that thought and maybe place the keys with an agency in February or so 🙂

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Weak Pound = I lose Money

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I’ve got some money saved up in my account that was meant to be converted to Euros and then transferred into the Italian bank account. Only I’ve been putting it off for ages, due to the weak bl00dy pound!

Yesterday, I made some calculations to see how much I actually lose if I transfer the money now – compared to the old exchange rate of £1 ~ €1.44. I think it’s something like €1500 that I’ll no longer have (3000 Deutschmark!). Still, what choice do I have? None.

At least I get quite good rates (if you can call them that..) whenever I do it, and for larger amounts (i.e. more than just holiday money) you want to do it online anyway rather than through your rip-off bank. I use XE Trade and have so for a good few years.

I’ll just have to decide now how much I want to transfer, and when. Either way I’ll lose money – but there again, it’s not likely to change any time soon so better off doing it now before it gets even worse and £1 = €1!!