Chris Thompson   Chris Thompson on the internet

New Years Eve and Day have vanished in a blur, and now here we are in a properly new year, staring 2010 in the face. Everyone is making their new year’s resolutions. Traditionally, of course, this is a time for change, a time for a fresh start, a time for renewal. This is a time to be the person you want to be. But some things, it seems, don’t change. I was browsing a list of property prices in 2010, and couldn’t help but notice that here, in the property market, things seem as horrible as ever.

I’m almost certain that I read something about house prices going up, and might have even blogged about it a while ago, sometime towards the end of last year. Some news story or hint or glimmer of hope that suggested change – of a good variety – was on the horizon. But evidently I remember wrong.

No matter how you look at it, things for our economy are still not looking good, and as a recent graduate, that’s quite a scary thought. I still know people who are looking for a job over a year out of university. There was a time when having a degree alone was enough, but not anymore.

All the word at the pub tonight was about mortgages, too – even mortgage rates are under the shadow of this repression, which, like the enemy in a horror movie seems to never go away.

Here’s hoping things pick up soon. Otherwise, it’s not much of a happy new year so far. It’s not just affecting property buyers and home buyers, it’s affecting everyone who works in the industry. I wouldn’t want to be one of our countries’ property investors if things continue this way. Or any countries’, for that matter. But I suppose you can say that about a lot of jobs, in these times.

Everywhere around the world people are strapped for cash, because, as we are so constantly reminded, we are deep, deep, deep in a recession. People might do odd little bits and bobs on top of any work they’re lucky enough to have, working in their spare time in order to earn a bit of spare cash. And it strikes me that, if you’re smart about the way you do it, investing might be a good answer. If you’re thinking about it, it seems this is the place for investment news.

Stocks, bonds, and equities – heck, practically everything you can invest in will often be low, or cheap, or worth a shot. And although it might take longer than we all hope for, when the recession does finally start to go away, what is low now might not be so low in the future. It seems to make sense.

Of course, I’m no expert in this field, but I’d imagine you’d need to build up a few pennies in your savings account beforehand. Or even one of those offshore banking accounts I mentioned yesterday, which are supposed to be pretty good for ratings. But once you’re set, it’s probably worth a look.

You could invest in anything. Tesco, for example, or Google, or even invest in agriculture – there is, of course, a practically infinite amount of ways to do it. And there are people who make a perfectly nice living simply through buying and selling stock. So, with cleverness, it is probably quite a worthwhile thing to get acquainted with.