Steve Hemingway

I have always been very skeptical about the various get rich quick seminar schemes. I believe that they target the financially naive, who can least afford to make capital losses on investment, and who can least afford the outrageous fees that are charged for banal or misleading investment advice.

This page has a surprisingly large number of comments from people who have had real contact with these highly dubious vendors of investment training courses. Not surprisingly the experience of most of them is very negative. There are a few comments from happy customers, but usually talking about the need to avoid negativity, including this remarkable contribution:

Richard Branson says that you are only as good as the six closest people around you...I surround myself with people like the Whitney organisation and dumped my negative friends. It is much more fun (and profitable).

I have heard of some whacky ideas for making money in my time, but the idea that I can become rich by ditching my friends who haven't seen the light is odd in the extreme.

I am in love with technology. I buy gadgets from time to time, half the time because I am so in love with the sheer engineering beauty of them.

I have had more wireless routers than I care to remember, and as more gadgets become wifi enabled (bt internet radio, eee PC, laptops galore, Playstation 3), the more I rely on them. I enthusiastically upgraded from 802.11b to 802.11g. I went to a MIMO netgear router. I carefully read reviews of various Pre-N routers, almost plumping for a D-link DIR-655, which seems to be highly regarded.

Unfortunately I just know that all of these will not address the fundamental problems of wireless routers in my house (an fairly large Victorian monstrosity with thick walls, some of them rendered with wretched expanded metal lathing. I found that the Netgear MIMO router had worse performance than my old Linksys WRT54G 802.11g router. Although new routers have much higher throughputs this doesn't really help me as my problem is with range.

Anyway, about a year ago I set up a router to function as an access point. Something went wrong with how this was configured and I ended up putting it aside and forgetting how I'd configured it. In such a situation I normally find that a quick search on google produces just what I want. The problem for me in this situation was that I'd completely forgotten that I was looking to simulate the behaviour of an access point.

Anyway, he most useful page I found was this one. I didn't really feel that it was detailed enough, but it seems to have worked for me. I did not disable RIP processing.

If you want to know exactly how I did this, drop me a line at steve.hemingway@gmail.com and I'll write the details as an extension to this entry. If you know of an existing page that covers this in more detail, or more specificially to a current router models, then please comment or email!

Martin Wolf is on as great form as ever. This article says it all. In particular, it points out the weakness of the argument that somehow the rich (foreigners) are different. That they will somehow desert the country if the non-dom loophole is close, even though (i) domiciled rich Brits do not desert the country and (ii) the home countries, such as the USA, or non-doms have no such loopholes.

Predictably the responses to this article have been absurd, such as this one, written by a Mr David A Randall. In it he argues that the obscenely rich are about to become some kind of persecuted minority. He writes "Many a minority group in history has found its plight ridiculed by those whipped up by propaganda and envy, then deprived of its rights, and this behaviour has led us into barbarity." I am no socialist, but the idea that private equity barons will be afraid to leave their homes at night is laughable.

Similarly, some non-doms have asked: what has the British government ever done for us? We do not use its lousy state-run schools or hospitals. We do not expect a British state pension and certainly do not want one. We do not expect to receive any of the benefits showered on the UK underclass. So why should we pay taxes? You should be grateful for our brilliant presence.

Yet this argument, too, cannot be limited to non-doms. The same argument can be made by wealthy British people. The upper 10th of UK income earners surely provide the largest lifetime net contribution to taxation, because they pay the highest taxes and make least use of state benefits. So why should they pay tax? Maybe nobody should pay tax on incomes above, say, £100,000 a year.

Our family is a fan of Lovefilm. If you would like to try it then you can get three months free membership by visiting this URL and entering the code 'PRGLFRAF4' (don't include the quotes).

This is offered to you, my thin-on-the ground readers, as a token of my appreciation. I don't think this will work outside of the UK. I don't want any thanks, but perhaps you could email me if you do claim one of these vouchers so I can remove this entry when I've heard that two people have claimed.

I am still alive, but a bad cold/fever is making me feel close to death.

My good friend Simon Phillips runs a farm in Devon where he breeds prize-winning Ruby Red Devon cattle. The animals are slaughtered periodically and he sends out freezer packs each consisting of 1/8th of a cow! The meat is hung for at least a fortnight before being butchered and vacuum packed. They are delivered un-frozen, but unless you are running a restaurant you will probably want to freeze all bar a few pieces.

Anyway, with his last pack he enclosed a sheet saying that he now has the capacity to take on a few more customers. He is offering a referral fee of 25% off the next order, but I'd be happy to split this with anyone who is interested in trying out this truly fabulous beef.

Just contact me at steve.hemingway@gmail.com to indicate your interest.

The category of this entry is really 'not seen on the web'.

I am writing it because when I was young, in my family, in South Wales, we referred to spring onions as 'gibbons'. I have searched, but failed to find any reference to this definition on the web.

I have no idea of the origins of this word. My family had both English and Welsh roots (my father's forebears came from Yorkshire, my mother's from Aberystwyth). I don't recall coming across the term 'spring onion' until I was a student safely away from any Welsh influence.

Please feel free to comment to confirm or deny the accuracy of this usage.

If you execute this search you can check whether any other pages defining the word 'gibbons' with reference to salad vegetables.

I haven't blogged here for a good while about China. I continue to take an interest, but the number of transactions I'm involved in has definitely gone down. I have invested in a few HK-listed developers and REITs, as a hedge against getting left too far behind in the direct investment market. The general view is that the market in Zhuhai is stalled, with prices static, and rental demand weak for all but the most high-end places. In my view this is just what the market needs to allow everyone to have time to think about whether they want to be in the market, and what part of the market (location, size, type, commercial/residential) they want to be in. I have a suspicion that high quality office space in good locations (Gong Bei, Jida) will give the best total return over the next few years.

I am in negotiation to rent a new office in Gong Bei. This is actually a share of an office owned by Chris Wong, (see links to his ventures at the end). This office will allow me finally to complete the setting up of my WFOE. The whole cost of this has been low, but it has run into a few problems, not least getting a physical bank reference over to Zhuhai (sending docs to China is still a problem I haven't solved: I understand the key is to send via HK) and then using my small office as a registered office for the company.

Chris is a mine of information about buying property in ZH. He obviously must have some good contacts in the real estate industry - he is about to launch a property portal! More importantly he owns a number of apartments in various locations across HK, Macau, Zhuhai, as a foreigner: since Chris is a Canadian, not a PRC or HK citizen.

Being qualified to borrow is not as hard as you might think. All that is required is a bit of Chinese lateral thinking. If you would like to know how it is done, the contact me via the Ming Wei Properties contact page.

I am trying to plan my trip next month.

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I can't believe that I did this. I just wiped my blog!

I was cleaning up my filesystem, and was a bit overenthusiastic. This resulted in me losing my Movable Type directories and files. Fortunately Pair Networks were up to the job and restored the whole user directory within less than an hour. This is not part of the regular service - backups really are taken to to cope with total server failure, but my cock up was undone with minimal fuss. I could even have telephoned, but I chose to raise a ticket.

Some of you read this but fail to monitor mingwei.co.uk, religiously or not. Some of you are known not to have signed up for the Ming Wei Newsletter. You can't avoid it that easily: here it is, reproduced in all its goriness:

Introduction

You are receiving this newsletter either because you used to be subscribed to the Herts Lettings/Ming Wei 'China list' on Constant Contact, or because you have registered an account on the Ming Wei website. If you don't think you should be receiving this then please use the unsubscribe link at the bottom or email me directly at steve@mingwei.co.uk to ask to be removed. This is not spam. Please do not report it as such and get me blacklisted! This newsletter must have made its way through your spam filter which, from my point of view, is definitely a good thing. If you have any interest in reading subsequent ones then it might be worth adding the sender to your address book, as this will reduce the chance future mailings being misclassified as spam.

The state of the Zhuhai Real Estate Market

Property prices in China generally have softened considerably in the last few months. Even China's large internal economy is not immune from the global credit crunch. Property prices in central locations in Zhuhai have stagnated over the last three or four months, and transaction volumes have plummeted. A number of estate agencies have gone out of business, and others have reduced the size of their branch network. Rental demand has weakened too, although there are still pockets of strong demand in Xiawan, especially near the New Bar Street alongside the Qianshan river.

The rail link to Guangzhou is now well underway, and should becompleted by next year. This will, for the first time, permit people tolive in Zhuhai, with its clean air, good schools and attractive seasideambience while working in Guangzhou, with its higher concentration ofmulti-national companies and executive jobs. This should have a majorimpact on demand for upmarket accommodation in the city and should helpto offset the general slowing down of the economy.

The Hong Kong and Macau property market is surging ahead, fuelled bycheap money provided by Ben Bernanke. Whereas RMB interest rates arelikely to rise to combat inflation the HK equivalent is tied to thedollar. This makes for an interesting property market in the twomarkets which have such a big influence on the Zhuhai market.

Progress on allowing foreigners to borrow to finance property purchase

I have continued to investigate ways to allow foreigners to obtain bank financing for purchases. I have made a small breakthrough, but this will be economic only for the larger investor. It requires that the investor set up a WFOE in China, so it is only for the more active and committed investor. If you are interested I can send you details. This should be available for any sort of real estate investment - commercial or residential.

Investing pension savings in China real estate

It is possible for those of you with SIPPs or SSASes to invest in China. I have been speaking to a financial advisor who knows of a way to comply with the rules on investment in real estate but still invest in overseas property. This involves setting up a investment vehicle, with around ten investors through which the investment can be made. Please call me to find out more about this opportunity.

Converting currency problems (in principle) solved

I have now solved, in principle, the problem of remitting foreign currency into China for the purpose of purchasing real estate. I am now in contact with some English-speaking lawyers who have a good knowledge of real estate law in the mainland. The whole process of property purchase in Zhuhai should now be straightforward. I have spoken to a number of experts on remitting investment profits out of China and they all tell me that there are really no problems doing this, as long as the audit trail for the original investment is available.

Auctions coming up in Zhuhai

There are a lot of auctions for properties coming up in Jida, along Jiuzhou Dadao, which is a major thoroughfare. These can be somewhat difficult for foreigners because of fairly onerous rules about registering to bid and depositing funds up front. However some bargains can be had, especially in a slow market, such as the one that obtains in Zhuhai now.

Thinking of buying to refurbish?

I have a number of contacts in the building trade, who can refurbish tired apartments in Zhuhai. Some of these can be rather expensive, but it is undoubtedly the case that a very well decorated 'western style' apartment commands a premium rent and - as long as it is in a central location - can be rented to one of the increasing numbers of foreigners who are coming to work in Zhuhai. There are often good returns to be made by buying properties in a good location but in a poor condition. Many buyers need to rent or occupy quickly because of cash flow constraints, and so are not interested in such properties. We can take the risk out of getting the redecoration done on time and on budget. If you buy new-build or off plan you will also find that you need to have a good interior decorator/second fix building team as most new-builds in China are just concrete shells with basic services (water, sewerage, electricity, gas) terminated in one corner.

Guide and interpreter facilities now available in Zhuhai

I am now able to arrange an English-speaking guide, with car, to showinvestors around Zhuhai. I have an office in Gong Bei, fully equippedwith internet and English-speaking staff, who can arrange accommodationand generally look after you on your visit to Zhuhai to inspectproperty. This is in partnership with a tour company that operates in Zhuhai, Hong Kong and Macau. They would be delighted to arrange a trip to local tourist attractions!