vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
"I hope you're not blaming the banks for the housing price inflation.  It's called supply and demand, and is mostly caused by people, possibly like you, who have unreasonable expectations about the future value of real estate, and thought it would keep rising unrealistically forever.  The bank's ""crime"" was to lend money recklessly, to people who could not really afford it.  The buyer's ""crime"" was to buy a home they could not afford with the expectations that it would go up in price and they could either flip it or refinance.  The real ""criminals"" might be the real estate agents who convinced the buyers they could afford it, and helped them find an avenue to get the money.  There were (are?) a lot of unscrupulous, or simply bad, real estate agents out there. But they, too, were naive enough to think houses would continue to rise.  tl;dr.  We are all to blame.  Calling owners ""slumlords"" and blaming them and the banks for your misfortune will only hurt you and make you forever the victim."
"It took me a very longtime to learn that I no longer need to live like a starving student... and even now I live like a well-off student. And that's OK -- my needs and tastes are mostly simple. There's no reason to spend just for the sake of spending... but if you want something, and really can afford it after setting aside savings for retirement and emergency funds and basic operating capital, go for it. It may help to pick out a specific thing you want, or want to replace. My ""rules"" used to say that i was always allowed to spend money on books, music, and needed tools. Then i convinced myself that shelves are tools for storing other things. And that furniture is shelving for people. And that art, if it really speaks to me, is akin  to books. And that a decent instrument is a tool. And that my time has value, so sometimes it's less expensive in real term to throw money at a problem rather than scheduling my life around it. One step at a time, with all the steps making sense. I will still spend entirely too long agonizing over minor purchases, at times -- but that's about convincing myself that I like the choice I'm making, not about the price  per se. Meanwhile, saving means you can buy things later without having to borrow. The semi-student routine , and waiting until i was ready to buy,is why i had the value of a house in my investments when i was ready to buy one. And is why I'm almost at my target number for retirement well before my planned retirement date. One other thought: if you're comfortable buying gifts for others but don't tend to spend on yourself, you aren't a miser -- just frugal."
As a buyer you must realize they are doing everything they can to get the best deal for their client (the seller). They have made the first offer (the listing price), you made a counter offer, now they are trying to get you to see that your offer is too low.  How can they do this: show you comps that they have found to show that either their listing price was where it should be, or even that it could have been higher. If there are fresh comps that are showing an upward trend, they will be sure to show you those. Another approach is to show you what is happening in the neighborhood today.  If those sales have settled, then they are public record. If they haven't settled they are not public record. Your agent should be reminding you that they are worthless as a comp until they are settled. The only ethics issue is did the agent, by disclosing the contract, commit a violation against the rights of buyer and the seller of the other house. You have not been harmed, and the seller of the house you are interested in most likely approved the maneuver.  I would look at the documents you signed to see who owns the info on the form. Because that will tell you if your offer on the house is being used by another agent, or even your agent, as leverage in another deal.
"Having just come back from China, two things regarding its continued growth on this topic stuck out to me:  1) The need and want for high quality American Made goods - the Chinese acknowledge they are the kings at manufacturing things en masse, and that the Americans are the kings at making things that can last for life.  2) China is slowly starting to push manufacturing off to African countries as they continue to rise.  Given that, it should be noted that once you leave a large city like Beijing or Shanghai and see the ""real China"" you can see how the country is artificially propped up by the government. Everything from real estate to its tech giants. A recession is looming there and could hit it hard.    One quick edit: As Americans, we are often force fed this notion that the Chinese hate us, and all of this other nonsense. It is actually quite the opposite. While there is a fair level of blind kool-aid drinking and communist party following, the Chinese people actually love American citizens and very much want what we have. The Chinese word for United States is Měiguó, which means beautiful country."
There are many tasks required in a project.  In order to complete the project, what steps and in what order are required to complete the project in the shortest possible period of time?  Those steps are on the critical path.      E.g. if you have a project to design and assemble a new sandwich for your restaurant, buying supplies and putting them together are on the critical path, while deciding on a menu name or price are not.  This is because you cant even begin to assemble your sandwich until you've bought bread, but picking out a price and name can happen at any point in this process without holding anything up.
A bridge loan (or bridging loan) is designed for exactly this circumstance. They're short-term loans (6 months is common) designed to help home-buyers to bridge the gap between buying and selling. MoneySupermarket defines them like this: Bridging loans are designed to help people complete the purchase of a property before selling their existing home by offering them short-term access to money at a high-rate of interest. As well as helping home-movers when there is a gap between the sale and completion dates in a chain, this type of loan can also help someone planning to sell-on quickly after renovating a home, or help someone buying at auction. Interest rates are very high, and there are likely to be fees, because you'll only need the loan for a short period. Here are some links to Canadian websites that explain more.
"In some cases perhaps, but in others not.  Several homes near me were sold over and over again during the bubble years (at incrementally higher and higher sale prices) -- the last owners in nearly all cases defaulted and the banks (after dragging their feet for a couple of years) finally foreclosed and sold the homes off cheap.  In all but one of the ""distressed sale"" cases, the people buying the houses now ARE in fact moving into them as their primary home (the exception being a current resident who bought the adjacent home with the intentions of fixing it up &amp; renting it out, I believe at least initially to a family member); but in ALL cases (in no small part due to the fact that they were able to purchase the properties cheap) these new owners are investing substantial money into fixing them up (new roof &amp; gutters, new windows &amp; doors, paint and/or siding, often all new carpeting, some landscaping, etc).  Also, from the perspective of our homeowners association, all of these new people think our annual HOA fees are a ""bargain"", whereas the previous bubble-era ""homeowners"" (if, having invested almost nothing, they could truly be called that) did nothing but whine and complain (well, and once they began defaulting on their mortgages, they also defaulted on their HOA fees).  So it's a win-win for our neighborhood. We're getting good, solid residents who are planning on taking care of their properties... the exact opposite of what you are claiming.   (The ""house-flippers"" you decry were the ones buying with ""no money down"" during the bubble era -- and they nearly killed the neighborhood.)"
Because the people creating the bubbles and making money on the bubbles are also major political campaign contributors. The home price rebound deserves an asterisk, btw - mansions are selling like hotcakes, middleclass homes not so much. Non-mansion home prices were rising for awhile because funds like Blackrock were buying them to rent while securitizing the rental income stream, but between management headaches (property management would be like, actually doing something constructive, which hedge funds don't do) and the shaky finances of a great proportion of renters, this gambit isn't working so well.
"This is way too long for a comment, so I am posting this as an answer. My bet is that you're buying a new piano. It is the only instrument that makes sense. The rest of this answer are going to assume this, but this should apply well if you're going after a violin or marimba for example. For those readers that do not know, a piano is a very delicate and expensive music instrument. My piano is literally more expensive than my car. There are a lot of similarities in sales negotiation between buying a piano and buying a car. You may be surprised to know that the cost for the dealer to acquire a piano is only around half the listed price. Therefore, the salesperson has a lot of room to negotiate a sale price to you. This explains why he was able to make a good offer for the model you are not intending to buy. You are best by comparing the final sale price with other similar models in your region, or the exact model around your region, which you have already did. Those indicate the standard price in your negotiation. You described the dealer had the exact model you desire, only in different appearance. I assume you want a black color while they have a white or wood-pattern one in their showroom. Note, every piano is different. Even with the exact same model, there will be very slight differences in the tune and touch, since some processes are hand finished. (If you're buying a Steinway, treat each of them as an individual hand crafted art.) Play the exact instrument you will be buying before closing the deal. If they do not have your desired model in the showroom, ask for a visit to their inventory facility. Again, play the exact instrument, not a showroom model. Some dishonest dealers will have their showroom pianos regulated and tuned differently than the ""standard"" pianos from shipping. If you get an extremely good offer, proceed with caution. There may be defects in that particular instrument. Look for rust or oxidized layers on the strings. Look for groves in the hammers. Listen to clicking noises when playing the keys. These are signs that the instrument has been around for quite a while and they cannot sell it.
I'm asking particularly about the luxury cars, because such cars loose value very quickly and/or are often not owned by the driver but rather by the bank or leasing company. Which on the other hand offers the more savings-oriented CEO who is not that much interested in having a brand new luxury car the possibility to go for a one-year-old and save the rest. Knowing that, your CEO should be able to buy a one-year-old Mercedes SL 350 / year. Or a new one every 1 1/2 years (without building up savings or buying a house). However, building up wealth will be much faster with the CEO going for the one-year-old as the brand-new car option amounts to loosing ca. £20 - 30k within a year. An even-more-savings-oriented CEO who keeps his existing Mercedes 300 TD for another few years, thinking that this conservative choice of car will be trust-inspiring to the customers. Or goes for the SLK thinking that most people anyways don't know that the K between SL and SLK halves the price... However, if you just want to be seen with the car: after an initial payment of say £8-10k, you can get a decent SLK 350 (not the base model, either) at a monthly rate of ca. 600£/month or less than £7k/year. Note however, that this money does not count towards any kind of wealth, it's just renting a nice car. In other words: If driving the SLK 350 is your absolute goal, you could in theory have that with a net salary of £25k/year (according to your tax calculation, that should be somewhere around £35k / year gross), if you have the savings for the initial payment (being able to make the initial payment may also help convincin the leasing company that you're serious about it and able to pay your rates). There are also huge differences in value between large houses, compare e.g. these 2: And, last but not least, there is a decided one-way component in the timing of priorities here: it is much easier to go and get a luxury car when you have savings than first going for the luxury car and then trying to make up with the savings...
As you know, everyone wants to know about the home construction time before buying the home. Because, it is a big investment of an amount, so we provide the best service before buy the home at the affordable price. So many our clients are very happy after taking our service.Assured Building Inspections offers every day a wide range of  a building inspection. Because, we provide full satisfaction. We are one of the most and trustable Australia's inspections service provider company.
IMHO you are in no position to buy a home.  If it was me, I'd payoff the student loans, pay off the car, get those credit card balances to zero (and keep them there), and save up at least 10K (as an emergency fund) before even considering buying a home.   Right now you have no wiggle room.  A relatively minor issue with a purchased home can send you right back into trouble financially.  You may be eager to buy, but your finances say different.   Take some time to get your finances on track then think about buying. You can make a really good long term financial decision with no risk:  pay off those credit cards and keep them paid off.  That is a much smarter decision then buying a home at this point in your life.
No one has considered the tax write off at the end of the year? Will the house be in the parent's name or his, and can one of them take a write off for taxes and interest at the end of each year? On a small salary this may mean he has no tax liability for the four years, and can possibly make up the extra buying costs.... also, look at the comps in the area for the past five years and see if home values have increased and turnover rate for the area will tell you if people are buying in that area...
&gt; I'm not so sure that performance measurement of students is all that difficult  You assume that student performance is a good proxy for teacher performance. One of the bigger influences on student performance is parent engagement (particularly the parent engagement that happens prior to school age, but also the engagement once they're in school). Often these differences run along socioeconomic lines, and schools are generally divided on neighborhood lines with students attending the school closest to their home.  If you judge based on student performance, you'll likely assume that the teachers in the richer neighborhoods are better (students perform better on standardized tests, students are more likely to graduate high school and even go on to college, etc). The fact is, there's a lot of good teachers who take the hard jobs because even a little improvement can go a long way. Put those same teachers in the richer neighborhoods and you might judge things differently.
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I noticed the buy/sell board table.  Where did you notice this. Generally for a pair of currencies, there is Unit associated along with direction. The Unit is generally constant. These are only revised when there is large devaluation of a particular currency. Buying Php for MYR 8.52, Selling MYR 8.98. So in this case the Unit of PHP is 100, so Bank is Buying 100 PHP from you [you are selling PHP] and will give you MYR 8.52.  If you now want to buy 100 PHP [so the Bank is selling you], you have to pay MYR 8.98.  So you loose MYR 0.46 Why are they selling it way beyond the exchange rate? Why is this? As explained above, they are not. Its still within the range. The quote on internet are average price. This means before going back to Philippines, I can buy a lot of peso that I can buy and exchange it for higher price right? Generally an individual cannot make money by buying in one currency and selling in other. There are specialist who try and find arbitrage between multiple pair of currencies and make money out of it. Its a continuous process, if they start making profit, the market will react and put pressure on a pair and the prices would move to remove the arbitrage.
In the United States taxes on the sale of a principal residence are based on the difference between the sale price and the cost of the home. Assuming you meet the requirements you can shelter 250,000 or 500,000 of gains from the sale of your principal residence.  This calculation is not related to the loan balance. The basic equation is sales price minus purchase price. It get a little more complex because some costs to purchase and sell the home are included in the calculation, or if you made renovations to the house that will increase your costs and decrease your gains. Trying to decrease the loan balance just before selling the house would just be paying yourself that money at the settlement table. It could save you some money on interest between now and settlement but emptying your bank account to save a few bucks doesn't seem worth it. I would also prefer to have the money in the bank to pay for some expenses that will popup getting the house sold, you moving, and the settlement date.
By going online to purchase the computer parts you are buying from a source that has less overhead than a general store or shop that has expenses not involved from online stores. This is the biggest reason, but with this comes the ease and comfort of not having to leave your home, just log onto the internet and order your laptop parts online.
I'm guessing it depends on how much you'd be paying for membership. If you save more than the membership costs you and you actually use the products you buy and they don't get thrown away, then it's worth it. I'm not a member of a warehouse club but I do have a membership for another wholesale outlet, so I know a little bit about buying in bulk.  You need to take the same approach to buying goods wholesale as you would in an ordinary outlet, and do a few more things besides. Things like writing a list and sticking to it, making that list logically, so that you minimise the amount of time you spend walking around the shop. The less you see, the less you are likely to buy. Don't be taken in by offers, it's only a bargain if it's something you would have bought anyway. Don't shop on an empty stomach or with you children. And with bulk buying, you have to stick to things with long dates, unless your family gets through something at a phenomenal rate. Things like pet food are good, sugar too if you do a lot of home baking, that kind of thing. Toilet paper and kitchen roll are great to buy in bulk if you have the storage space and toothbrushes are good too. You'll always need them, always need to replace them, they don't take up much space and don't have a use by.  The rules differ from family to family. Look at what your family uses and how much time it takes to get through something. That's the best place to start.
There are several differences in these professionals and where you require them are also completely different areas. If you are looking to add that aesthetic appeal to your home, with things like furnishing colours, wall patterns, windows treatments, etc., in that case, a decorator would be useful  and they will design your home in such a way that it’ll not just showcase your trendy lifestyle, but will also add to overall functionality.
"First, don't try to understand other people's finances. Family or a trust could provide the minimum down payment, or even large chunk of the price, leaving them with a small/manageable monthly mortgage.  More importantly, HGTV home buying shows are fake. Buyers don't actually buy, other people touring are just locals/ friends, and the entire plot is literally a written script.   Source: My best friend had 3 of his listings on one of the shows as the house options, and our friends were the ""other buyers"" on the tour."
That's why they put a spread between the bid and ask price, but that's another topic not related to your question -- just note the point of them buying at the bid price, and selling at the ask price -- that's what they're saying they'll do. Now, one major difference with options vs. stocks is that options are contracts. So, therefore, we can note just as easily that YOU can sell the option on something (particularly if you own either the underlying, or an option deeper in the money). If you own the underlying instrument/stock, and you sell a CALL option on it, this is a strategy typically referred to as a covered call, considered a ""risk reduction"" strategy. You forfeit (potential) gains on the upside, for money you receive in selling the option. The point of this discussion is, is simply: what one buys one can sell; what one sells one can buy -- that's how a ""market"" is supposed to work. And also, not to think that making money in options is buying first, then selling. It may be selling, and either buying back or ideally that option expiring worthless. -- Now, a final example. Let's say you buy a deep in the money call on a stock trading at $150, and you own the $100 calls. At expiration, these have a value of $50. But let's say, you don't have any money in your account, to take ownership of the underlying security (you have to come up with the additional $100 per share you are missing). In that case, need to call your broker and see how they handle it, and it will depend on the type of account you have (e.g. margin or not, IRA, etc). Generally speaking though, the ""margin department"" makes these decisions, and they look through folks that have options on things that have value, and are expiring, and whether they have the funds in their account to absorb the security they are going to need to own. Exchange-wise, options that have value at expiration, are exercised. But what if the person who has the option, doesn't have the funds to own the whole stock?