Different Perspective

Open the car door, climb into that comfort zone known as the driver's seat. Kinda fits your bum nice, doesn't it? All the mirrors are set up at just the right spot, the peddles are in that spot you know they should be. Sure is comfortable. Take someone you know for a drive around the block. While you are driving it handles how you know it will. Everything is right in the world.

NOW STOP!

Get out and get in the back seat (passenger side) ask your friend to drive the same route. You are still in the same car on the same roads but it is not the same feeling. You are not in your comfort zone. When you get back to your drive way nothing was different except your perspective.

Just because you were not doing it the way you always do it does not mean the same results could not be attained.

Sometimes you need to step outside your comfort zone to see the world in a different light. The excuse of "But I've always done it that way" or even worse "My parents did it that way" does not cut it. The world is changing and we can't settle into the same old thing.

Let me ask, have you booked a plane fair through a travel agent lately? What about taking film to the drugstore to get photos developed? Did you ask for the Beta section at Blockbuster last time you were there?

Bob Dylan talked about how things were changing over 40 years ago.

Heck, now we can watch him perform it live in 1976 or the Peter, Paul and Mary version with a click of a mouse.

Things are moving at an astounding pace. I had seen this video before, as most of you have, but a recent post on a friend's blog had me think about just how quickly things are moving.

When you decided to buy a house did your mom or dad say "Call Joe Schmoe, that's who we used 15 years ago." Did you call or did you turn on your computer?

Times they are a changin'

Real Estate Done Different

That sounds an awful lot like a sales pitch.

The fact is that things are changing at lightening speed. By the time I am done writing this blog thousands of people will think of thousands of new ways to do things. In the day and time before the www phenomenon it would not impact the world so much. Today ideas are transferring between minds quicker than Brainy Smurf could get thrown out of the village.

Information Super Highway has turned into Super Speedway NASCAR style. Facebook, Youtube, Google, Twitter, and Linkedin are today's coffee shops. Rumours and opinions are delivered on the fly with mobile technology. The kids of today do not pass notes, they text and tweet. Blackberry and iPhone are the typewriter of today's roving reporter. They are not searching out the news. Life is center stage.

When a movie debuts in New York and is pulled from the theaters in Los Angeles because word has travelled faster than the time zones you know things have changed.

Technology will be the key to getting your home viral. Post your listing on your blog. Update your status on Facebook to include your link. Tweet about your house for sale and where people can find it. Heck go "Old School" and email it out to everyone in your address book and ask them to pass it on.

When you are thinking of selling your house remember that people are thinking of buying one. Would you pay someone $15,000 to pass a note?

That's Fair, Right?

When it comes to your finances you need to ask this in many areas. I recently heard reports that "many economists felt that a .25% drop in interest rates would not suffice, that a .5% would be needed from the Bank of Canada to assure the public during these times". In this CBC article it states that 6 out of 10 wanted the .5% drop. Here is the funny part. It seems that a lot of these economists are employees of the banks. Take the economist quoted in this article, Dawn Desjardins, assistant chief economist at Royal Bank.

Why would the banks want the overnight rate dropped? Didn't they just take away all of their discounts on the variable rate mortgages? Now that they are prime plus they want prime dropped.

Here is what I know. Someone looking to buy a home that was looking at prime -1% was sitting in and around 3.75% to 4.25% on a variable rate mortgage. Now they are prime +1% and they are looking at 5% and higher even with the drop in the BOC rates at most institutions.

As a home buyer, today more than ever, you need to get shopping on your mortgage. You should always shop around. A mortgage broker is a great tool to keep the banks honest (trust me, they need it). So when hunting for that new house, call your bank, but also call a mortgage broker. Make sure that you are not required to pay the broker. They get paid from the lender.

That's fair, right?

M