This is Money Podcast

If you are selling your home you need to make it look as good as possible.And that starts before you welcome any potential buyers through the door, as to even get them to consider visiting it needs to look great in estate agent's photos.In a world where people go online to hunt for properties, how can you do that? In this excerpt from the This is Money podcast we give sellers some tips to make their home shine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The National Health Service is 70 years old this year and most of us are proud of the British institution, leaning on it in our times of need.However, we’re living longer with more complex problems and the service keeps crying out that it needs more money.Where does it come from? Do we make cost-cuttings or plough lots of money in, do we increase income tax, make the rich pay, or introduce a new special ring-fenced tax?Theresa May announced plans for £20.5billion-a-year cash boost – but was a little short on the detail. She hinted at tax rises and mentioned a ‘Brexit dividend’.This is Money editor Simon Lambert, along with consumer affairs editor Lee Boyce and presenter Georgie Frost look at ways to fix the NHS in the latest podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What's the most important thing when you want to move home?Should you worry more about getting the best price or simply about getting your home sold?On this week's podcast we delve into the art of home selling, looking at how to make sure the price is right, whether to do work before you sell, or just a quick spruce up and why what's happening in the property market near you should be a deciding factor.Another month and another set of mixed messages about the state of the housing market is revealed.First-time buyers who have a deposit and home movers in the North are doing fine. But London is on the ropes and second and third movers are staying put, bringing the market to a standstill.According the Halifax, prices nevertheless managed to rise £3,000 last month in this ‘subdued’ market.Editor Simon Lambert, assistant editor Rachel Rickard Straus and money broadcaster Georgie Frost get into the aural attic to unbox the facts.The villain of the piece, they agree, is stamp duty. It used to be a 1% tax on purchases but it got tweaked into a giant cash cow for the Treasury by successive Chancellors.Stamp duty is stalling the market and needs to change but how?And is it really worth putting in a new kitchen before you put your home on the market if things get desperate?Also on the show: Paddington Bear 50p Gate.An exclusive This is Money report this week found an enterprising student in Caerphilly who had been handed a not-yet-released Paddington Bear 50p coin in her change.The shop happened to be down the road from Royal Mint, where the coin was made. The coin happened to end up on eBay with bidding topping £15,000.Find out how this happened and whether it’s true, spoiler alert: it is, what ridiculous lengths the Mint went to try to get its coin back and how you can get your hands on one.Finally, the clamour to tackle inner-city pollution has taken an unexpected twist with motorists in a huge new area of London bearing the brunt of a proposed new fee.Owners of reasonably new cars that don’t meet the emissions standards of brand new ones, face a £12.50 charge every time they drive - even if they live in the zone and need to take the kids to school.Not everyone is happy. Especially as it looks like the explosion in numbers of online shopping delivery vans and not cars might be the major cause of pollution.Enjoy, Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whatever happened to bitcoin? After the mania at the end of last year when the price spiked to almost $20,000, the cryptocurrency took a tumble but more noticeably attention has drained away.You need no greater sign of that than figures showing bitcoin Google searches are down 90 per cent.That adds weight to the argument that much of the late 2017 big leg-up was driven by mainstream punters jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon.So with bitcoin largely out of the headlines, is that it for the cryptocurrency or is it time to buy for the long-term when things are quiet.On this week’s podcast we take a look at who’s buying, who’s holding and who might be waiting for the price to rise again and greater fool theory to deliver someone who will take their bitcoin off their hands.Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost also take a look at gold – and why people aren’t buying this traditional form of investment portfolio insurance – and the most consistent investment trusts of the past decade.And finally, the Government’s policy currently appears to be to confuse motorists as much as possible, with new MOT rules recently joining the car tax muddle. Are drivers now being held to ransom by mechanics over ‘dangerous’ faults – surely no garage would do that?Enjoy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Global financial markets have been flying up and down and all over the place this week and it’s all got to do with one boot-shaped country in the Mediterranean.Italy has found itself embroiled in a power struggle between Eurosceptic populists – winners of the March general election – and the pro-EU establishment.The ramifications have spread across the globe and will affect Britons from big-time investors to anyone building up a pension pot.As we write this a coalition deal has been reached in Italy, likely to avert a proposed snap election. But this story is moving so quickly that just hours ago when we recorded the podcast there was no deal on the table. Even more reason as things helter-skelter forward to step back and work out what is going on and how on earth we got here – as This is Money editor Simon Lambert offers in his back-to-basics explainer.Also in this episode, Simon, presenter Georgie Frost and personal finance editor Rachel Rickard Straus talk about what you can do to stop your dream house move falling through, and whether proposals to make tax on savings and dividends simpler will work – or just see savers pay more tax.And finally, in troubled times for the high street, they look at one retailer bucking the trend.Enjoy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ever heard of money flipping? It’s a new scheme doing the rounds on Facebook and social media that promises to turn your £50 into potentially thousands.So how do you do that? Simple really, you pay others to get onto the bottom rung of a pyramid and then recruit more people to move you up a level and get paid yourself.What makes it so dumb is that it doesn’t even try to have the legitimate veneer of famous pyramid schemes of the past. It’s a Ponzi scheme, plain and simple, but what is one of those and who was Charles Ponzi, the man the scams are named after.On this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost step back to America in 1920 to find out how Ponzi soared and then crashed – and look at the new money flipping scheme that has brought a trick as old as time to today’s digital age.Also on this week’s podcast, we look at TSB customers who are unfortunate enough to get scammed themselves after the bank’s meltdown and how it is failing them.And we take a look at whether the FTSE 100’s sudden 14% rise on its way to new record highs can still mean it is an unloved investment – and find out where pension millionaires invest.Enjoy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

High house prices mean that the biggest barrier to buying a home in Britain is raising a deposit.With mortgage interest rates at near record low levels, many would-be homeowners could afford monthly payments - but saving the average £30,000 deposit would take years.  For a lot of first-time buyers that means a trip to the Bank of Mum and Dad, but what if that's not an option?It is possible to buy a home without raising tens of thousands of pounds, if you take a 95% mortgage.With one of these deals, a first-time buyer able to pass mortgage affordability tests could put down a 5% deposit of £10,000 and buy a £200,000 home.But is that a good idea? Didn't small deposit mortgages crash the economy a decade ago? Are they not leaving themselves heavily overexposed to falling house prices?In this week's podcast, Simon Lambert and Georgie Frost dig into the world of buying a home with a small deposit mortgage, busting the myths and considering the benefits and the risks. They also look at whether giving buy-to-let landlords a tax cut to encourage them to sell could provide first-time buyers and home movers with a leg up, if a £10,000 bonus for all 25-year-olds would help, and after the dead cert rate rise that never happened, when will the Bank of England move?Enjoy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You don’t need to spend long reading the news to find a warning that Britain isn’t saving enough for retirement.But with a little bit of effort it is possible to get saving so that you can enjoy a richer retirement.On this week’s podcast Simon Lambert, Tanya Jefferies and Georgie Frost discuss how to start a pension, how to improve on the one you’ve got and how to work out if you are investing enough for retirement.They also take a look at how, if you are approaching retirement, you can check up on your state pension – and what to do if you think it's wrong.Enjoy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A top bank has formed a 'money mule hunting squad' and is planning to share its secrets with rivals.How does this scam work and what is being done to fight it? Should banks, universities and schools take more action to prevent young people getting sucked into helping hardened criminals hide their cash?  And as Nationwide starts turning away grandparents trying to deposit cash for their grandkids, what is behind this new curb on everyday cash transactions?The interest-only mortgage timebomb is a hot topic again after we featured the story of Len and Val, who never missed a mortgage payment but still face losing their home.This is Money Editor Simon Lambert and journalist Tanya Jefferies joined Georgie Frost to debate these issues.Plus, Simon has an impassioned rant about potholes... Hear it all on this week’s podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Should you cash in on your home to help yourself or your kids?As a generation retires with more money in their houses than the bank, this question will only become more pressing.And it’s been a topic of much debate on This is Money this week, as we revealed how a new wave of retirement interest-only mortgages could be about to emerge.Homeowners could use one to have a more comfortable retirement, clear some debt, or hand the kids or grandkids an early inheritance – perhaps to buy a home for their own young family.Is that a good idea or a recipe for disaster – and how did we even end up here?In a conversation that tracks all the way back to the mortgage boom of the Thatcher years, Simon Lambert, Rachel Rickard Straus and Georgie Frost dive into the homes as a cash machine question on this week’s podcast.Plus, they also take a look at what happens when an inheritance doesn’t materialise as thought – can you contest a will if it’s all left to the dogs’ home.The TSB meltdown is also up for discussion, including why it happened, what next and what people’s rights are.And finally, we’re fans of money saving at This is Money and value for money – so a luxury car for the price of a Ford Fiesta sounds pretty good.Big luxury cars depreciate hard, but that is good news for the canny second-hand buyer who can pick up vehicles that might have cost £50,000 for £10,000 a few years down the line.But we’re not talking shed money here, so it needs to be reliable. This week we looked at the best bargain barges as scored by What Car? reliability tests. Which one would you have?Enjoy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.