July 30th 2023 – This and That

Email News Originally Sent Out July 30th, 2023

Thanks For Catching Those Spelling Mistakes! 

I’ll start with my editorial notes. Two newsletters ago, I made 2 spelling mistakes. Normally I read over my work once or twice before I hit send, but in both cases, I guess my mind didn’t catch the spelling errors. Sort of like those social media posts where you have to “catch the error”, and you can stare at these puzzles for a while before you find it.

Anyways, thanks C for finding my first blatant error, but there was a second one that you didn’t find! All spell checkers welcome.

Which brings me to an interesting thought. Should I have someone edit my writing, or just keep going as is? I’ve been having some nice feedback so far, so I’ll continue on for now, until things get outta hand.

Feedback is welcome and encouraged. Except for unsubscribes. Ha!

You Can’t Cry Over Spilt Milk 

Growing up, my parents would use figures of speech, often. Why describe something in some long and winded way, when we can skip to the point? So if you find them throughout my writing, I’m not trying to be too cliche or flippant, it’s just the way I think, and talk. Bonus points for anyone who uses figures of speech in their emails to me!

It’s been a week and a half or so since my last update. Life happens fast. I’ve been meaning to send my news once a week, but life gets hectic. There’s no shortage of clientele who want and need good advice and guidance, which eats into my time.

Not on the Never Never Plan

Continuing on from my last point, your property purchase is the largest and most important purchase you’ll make. We have many of our clients approach us because they feel neglected and ignored by their bank, when time is at its utmost importance. Constant approval delays, little or no updates, and just low confidence in getting mortgages approved, are a few of the frustrating aspects of dealing with your bank.

At Olympic Mortgage, we do things differently. We push our lenders for updates. We do our best to stick to timelines we give to our clients. We give our clients updates, even when there is no update. We don’t just look at a subject removal date as a non-important number, we try to have our deals wrapped up before that ever important date. We don’t wait until the last minute to get your deal done. We work hard to ensure our clients have the confidence they need to remove their subjects, with a solid approval along with clear and consistent guidance on the process, from beginning to end.

We set the high standard for mortgages!

Check out our most recent google reviews. We are proud of the work we do for our clients, and hope that you’ll keep referring your friends, family and clients to us.

Adventures In Groceries

Each week, I’ll put a note in about food shopping, and general tips on how to save money. While it’s not really related to mortgages, it definitely relates to overall financial health, and honestly, I think I have some pretty good ideas on how to save some serious dollars at the grocery store.

Here we go!

1. Eat more Bananas! There are various foods that have avoided the dreaded inflation monster and remain at their same low prices. Bananas are a shining example. I’m not going to get into the reasons why bananas are cheaper, I’ll just make the statement. Go look it up if you’re curious (after you read this article).

Bananas have been consistently $0.88 a pound, and most recently, I saw them “on sale” for $0.79 a pound. No, you don’t need to buy the organic ones (but can if you really enjoy spending more money). I believe all bananas are organic in their own right.

My point is, bananas are cheap, super healthy, can be eaten in a variety of ways, (try it with peanut butter!), and, did I mention, THEY ARE CHEAP? So let’s all get healthier and save money together by eating a non-organic banana each day.

2. Here’s a free, no paywall article on how to catch the grocers on pricing mistakes and get your item FOR FREE. You heard it right. For free.

CBC Article

Now, the article itself is flawed (shame on you CBC), because the grocer actually has to give you the item for free, whether it is part of a “2 for the price of sale” or, individually priced items. Lesson is, watch for mistakes at the cashier!

I caught onto this trick years ago when someone mentioned it to me in the grocery store lineup. It has literally saved me hundreds since, because, you’d be surprised, grocery stores make a ton of mistakes in their pricing. The basic premise behind the trick is, if you catch a mistake on an item, you get the item for free if it is less than $10, or get a $10 discount if the item is more than $10.

Now, the cashier will first try to honor the price of what was posted, and most of us would be ok with that. PLEASE! Don’t accept anything less than what the rule prescribes: you actually get the item for free. The cashier will have to get their manager for approval, yada yada, but the whole process takes about 30 seconds, and you’ve just saved $4.00 on improperly labeled cottage cheese.

Don’t believe me? Here it is, straight from the horse’s mouth.

More on adventures in groceries next week. We have to get moving.

NEWS (there’s no shortage):

1. Robust economy pushed BoC to raise interest rates in July – Globe and Mail, Thursday July 27th

The current narrative right now is that our economy hasn’t slowed down as much as the BoC expected from its massive interest rate hikes. The article does mention that this last rate hike was more of an “insurance policy” against inflation, and with inflation figures last week coming in lower than expected, hopefully this will be the last time the BoC needs to raise the rate. With the prime rate now at 7.20%, we have tripled the low rate of 2.45% that we started at.

Unless inflation reverses and comes back up, the BoC needs to leave the interest rates alone, let the high rates really soak in. We also have to wait to find out what effects our higher rates have on the economy, as the most economists agree that the data lags by at least a few months after interest rate hikes.

2. AI may be moving too fast to control, tech pioneer warns. Globe and Mail, Wednesday July 26th.

AI articles abound these days. Scientists en masse are warning on the dangers of AI, and the globe seems to remind us on a regular basis. I can think of at least 2 or 3 movies that foresee computers taking over our world from the 80s and 90s (think of The Matrix, or Terminator), and it’s really odd to think that we might be living in a world where a computer will have human level intelligence.

Again, not really related to mortgages, but interesting nonetheless.

A few days ago I was talking to another broker who was showing off the writing capabilities of chat GPT. I glanced at what GPT was writing out, and frankly, I was not impressed. The writing was correct grammatically, and I guess got the point across, but it just lacked that human touch, and I could tell.

More to come this week for news.

Signing Off For Now,

David Steinberg, AMP, BComm

Mortgage Broker, Owner

Olympic Mortgage