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Orca, I've often thought about going back to live in the UK for the summer months and then living in Spain or similar for the winter months in an area where the climate was decent all year round but I wouldn't want to live in the UK during winter as the cold would really get to me. I know properties are geared up for the cold with central heating but it's still bloody cold and gets to extremes at times.

We have moved here to Hermanus and people still complain about the cold weather but I tell them they haven't even seen a winter until they've lived in Northern Europe!

Where you are in Portugal is there not an expat community in the area as I've always found that the Brits get everywhere and it's very unusual not to find them even in your part of the world. 

Orca, are there any websites that you used re Portuguese residency, visas, etc that were really helpful? Will access to Portugal change much after Brexit next March as I have a UK passport so could be an idea to get any applications sorted now before all this kicks in.

As I said we hope to travel there next year and see and weigh up all the options and stay for a short period of time extending this further the following year and then who knows we could make it a permanent move if things work out

Hi Orca,

Hope all is well with you as we haven't heard from you for a long time on your blog? How are you or how have you coped with the heatwave there? Can't imagine how hot it must have been because my family in the UK said it was unbearable there at times this summer so Portugal must have been hell!

I'm looking to do an initial 3 month stay in Spain/Portugal next year and slowly make it a 6 month residency in years to come as I hit retirement age later this year so planning this now but it could be a disaster if it is as hot again! Would think coastal areas would be better in this regard rather than inland.

Anyway, let us know how it's going and that life is still treating you well in Portugal!

This age old topic has led to many arguments over the years and it has got me thinking about the issue due to recent problems with tenants in one of my properties. To cut a long story short they didn't pay rental for 2 months and I thought I was going to be in for a long drawn out battle to evict them and despite getting plenty of legal advice I was resigned to the fact there is no short cut in the eviction process! I tried to reason with them in order to find a solution and obviously to hopefully get the overdue rental paid but last Sunday evening I got a text from them to say they'd moved out and then when I went to the property saw they had left it in a really disgusting state so this week I've been thinking why do I need all this stress especially now that I'm coming up to retirement age later this year? Right now my priority is to fix the property up in order to rent it out again or put it on the market and sell it and I've been going through the sums this week to see where my best options lie.

Total equity in the props I've got would be around R5.2m so with a 15-20% growth per year (it is still achievable isn't it? ) that would give an annual return of about R750k to R1m+ so what am I waiting for? Talking to a few agents also this week and their figs for the props I have show an average price growth of about 10% per year so the decision needs to be made in the coming months do I opt for the route of no tenant stress, no maintenance issues, no damaging of property, etc or the easier route of getting invested in the numerous products available with a lot less work involved?

Anybody else in a similar scenario or maybe you guys have your own views on the subject? Would be good to hear opinions.
 

OK

So I have stood on the sidelines for a few years and as you would imagine in hindsight would want to kick myself. Every single Crypto success story has normally sent that warning bell ringing " If its to good to be true it normally is" I, however, am starting to think that we are in the midst of a financial revolution here and would like to slowly become part of this.

So step one:

Account opened on Luno

Account opened with Bitstamp

Account opened on Poloniex

Plan now is to get some Bitcoin on Lumo and shift some to Bitstamp for a split on the top Coins and then use Poloniex for some of the smaller Altcoins

Linked up with some pretty serious groups online for signal purposes and keen to just give it a bash

Sure a number of you all on here are already deeply involved or at the very least curious.

Is anybody keen to get a group going here to start the journey?

jonb what made you opt for Bitstamp and Poloniex to trade on?

I use www.luno.com. For Bitcoin and Ether

jaDEB do you store the cryptos with Luno as well as buying them there?

I've just bought Ripple on eToro exchange as they take GBP & USD

Surely it must burst! Unsustainable?