The existing lender

As soon as I could, I contacted the lender that was financing my current home. From the information I provided on the phone, the rep said I would probably be approved, and he asked me to submit an application. This actually took a few days to prepare. It’s a painful process completing these multi-page application forms.

After considering our finances and commitments the deal seemed to be a no go. That was disappointing. They could help me, but only under certain conditions. Their assessment also took more time than expected. In fact, I had to get on the phone to them, rather than being contacted by the lender. Time was pressing.

They wanted me to jump through too many hoops. But I did have a very interesting conversation that had a favourable effect my interest rate. On my existing home loan, that is.

They took issue with my credit card limit. I couldn’t quite see the point of the credit card issue when it was raised, as I always cleared the debt before the due date each month. But I can see their point now. The point is that there might be debt, which might make it difficult to make the home loan repayments if the card debt builds up too high. They also wanted me to have a larger deposit for the property. This wasn’t going to happen. At the time of these conversations I had an offer on a property. I had no interest in saving for a larger deposit. I’d lose the property to someone else, and I wanted to avoid that.

The interesting thing that occurred during my enquiry to this lender was related to my current interest rate. Without my asking, the rep offered me a discount on my current rate. I’d never heard of a discount before. At least, not during a conversation such as this. I was almost dumbstruck, but not so dumb as to say that’d be very nice. So, the way this works is that whatever the going flexible rate is at any particular time that this company has set for people’s home loans, for the life of my home loan, the interest rate I will be charged will be 10% less than everyone else. I asked if he’d confirm that in writing, and sure enough an email came through to say just that. To say I was amazed is an understatement. There has to be a lesson here for everyone. Perhaps everyone should try for a discount. What have you got to lose? It’s possible they wanted to ensure they kept me as a customer. Perhaps they thought along the lines that here’s a client who’s shopping around, if I don’t get satisfaction with them they may have feared I’d walk off and refinance everything with some other company, and so lose my business. I don’t know. I never asked them.

These enquiries were at about the time the Australian Government had put out its offer of guaranteeing the big banks. My home loan wasn’t with one of the larger Australian banks. Perhaps they were losing customers and just wanted to hang on to me and this was the inducement. It worked.

I was speaking to a rep form another lending institution. Well, I was shopping around, after all. The rep asked who my home loan was currently financed with. I told him. His response surprised me. He said he didn’t know they were still in business. Comments like that do nothing for your confidence in your financial situation. Is it practice for these people to put fear into people’s minds?

Mobile phones

What is it with people and their mobile phones and their inability to switch them off?

I was at the theatre on Saturday. It was the last night in the Canberra Playhouse’s run of Halpern & Johnson starring Garry McDonald and Henri Szeps. McDonald and Szeps may be better known for their parts in the long running TV series ‘Mother and Son’. Halfway through this magical performance someone’s phone went off. I didn’t hear it, perhaps because the phone was set to a quiet mode, but I was dismayed to hear some idiot in the audience answering it and begin a conversation on their phone, in competition to the actors on stage. I was stunned. I’ve seen people at the movies sending text messages and continually switching their phones on and off and on and off to check stuff. But I’ve never experienced it at a live performance.

Don’t people know how annoying this is? Surely you know how much light comes from the screen of your phone. You’ve seen people using their phones as a torch when they arrive late at the movies. If you have to do that, then fine, but switch the damn thing off when you get to your seat.

I’ve got an old Nokia and it has a very dim screen but I’ve seen others using the same model at the cinema and they are still very bright in a darkened theatre. Then there are newer model bigger and brighter iPod, iPhone, iPad. Leave your iNuisance at home or in your pocket. It’s annoying to see these things blazing out in a darkened theatre. I’ve actually seem people scrolling through internet web pages while at the movies. It’s selfish and dumb.

I’ve seen some people trying to subdue the light emitted by tilting their phone. All you are doing is aiming the light into someone else’s eyes. Some people cup their hand over the screen presumably as a courtesy to others. Nice idea, but it doesn’t work. It just means that they have to fiddle with it for longer because you can’t see what they are doing.

Why don’t you just switch it off? Are you waiting for a call from a hospital about your sick relative? What are you doing in the theatre; if you were so concerned you should be by their sick bed. Are you waiting for information on a business deal? If so you should be in your office and not somewhere annoying the hell out of others.

I have to wonder why people bought tickets for the show if they find it preferable to play with their phones. If you aren’t enjoying it then walk out and visit your friends. They might enjoy your company rather than you trying to text them from the theatre. Everyone sitting nearby will appreciate your departure.

I’ve often felt like grabbing their phones and sliding them toward the exit door. That could be a hint. I’ve often thought of snatching them from their hands and crushing them under the heel of my shoe. Someone might do it one day. It makes me feel good just thinking about it.

Anyway, on Saturday at the Playhouse, I initially thought a dispute or fight had erupted somewhere. Heads turned to see what was going on. I had a look around myself but couldn’t see anyone. Then of course it became clear that this was a one sided conversation as they nattered into their phone. Selfish twit. The two actors on stage looked distracted, but continued. And still this one sided conversation continued. It ended after about a minute with, “...I’ll call you back.” This distraction lasted only for a minute and despite the performance continuing, my attention left the actors. I lost the thread of the performance. I expect others in the audience were similarly distracted. The distraction plays on your mind long after the distraction ceases. I guess I settled into the play after about three, four or five minutes, but that’s a long time.

Come on folks. Switch them off and give the rest of the audience a fair go.

Our offer is accepted

It may be stating the obvious, but it’s probably wise to grab some money before going on a shopping trip. It could be embarrassing having the shopkeeper wrap an item only to discover you only had a few coins in your pocket. The same is true with real estate deals.


We found a suitable property and made an offer. Thinking back on that day, I must have seemed a little off hand to the agent. Just before the agent got off the phone with our final offer the agent said she didn’t think the offer would be accepted. This was just some real estate trick to try and have us to increase our offer. It had no effect and asked her to put it to the vendor all the same. I also said we were going out in the afternoon; off to the movies. We love going to the movies.

Driving into town we chatted about the property and whether our offer would be accepted. We considered if it was accepted then we’d have a new property; if not then that would be too bad. We’d just keep looking for another property in the area. There seemed to be plenty of properties on the market. Anyway, late in the afternoon the phone rang. It was the agent. She seemed a little perturbed. It’s amazing how people don’t listen. I said we were going to spend the afternoon at the movies. Despite that, the agent seemed annoyed that we weren’t contactable. Don’t people know that you switch the mobile off when at the theatre?

Anyway, our offer had been accepted. All we needed to do was provide our solicitor’s contact details to get things rolling.


Actually, there was more to do than just contact our solicitor. I had to find a solicitor, but there was a bigger problem. I had to get some finance. I should have made a few serious financial enquiries before shopping around for a property, but I didn’t think there would be any problems. There were problems.

These photos are of Surf Beach at sunset. This is the local beach. This spot is not much more than five minutes walk from the property. There was plenty of incentive to get everything organised.