Burnaby Takeaway Promos

12/07/2024

Is it considered bad etiquette to not tip when picking up food from a restaurant that employs waiters/waitresses? How much is an appropriate amount to tip in this situation?

Rant warning - - 😣😣😣 here goes...
I am getting a little tired about ALL the tipping ppl. seem to expect for anything, anything at all. So, I ordered some food from a restaurant, I get in the car, drive there, get out of my car to pick up the food I already paid for, and now I am supposed to tip a waitress, any waitress who seems to be close by?

03/02/2024

Best Places to Invest in Real Estate in Canada: A 2024 Analysis

Durham Region 😍
For potential buyers searching for a property near a park or the water, Durham Region, which borders Lake Ontario, is a great option. Eight municipalities make up the area, and cities including Ajax, Brock, Clarington, Oshawa, and Pickering are more affordable compared to cities in other regions.

Although it is one of the smaller regions in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), with a population of roughly 700,000. In 2022, the Durham Region housing market got off to a fast start. In December 2021, the median home price crossed the $1 million mark for the first time; in February 2022, it reached its highest point of $1,228,990.

The average home price did, however, start to decline in March 2022 as a result of an increase in interest rates, similarly to the national average. By May, it had fallen back under $1 million, and by December, it had dropped to $874,456.

Greater Moncton 😍
According to Greater Moncton Realtors, the overall inventory of properties decreased to its lowest point since last spring. As a result, the balanced market remains competitive with a clear seller’s advantage.

Even though the most recent data is positive, the current shortage of properties for sale could prove to be a hindrance to the spring market’s customarily brisk activity. February saw a second straight month-over-month increase in home sales, which was in line with historical norms.

Even though the average benchmark price of a property increased slightly in February to roughly $305,000, home prices already had been on the decline, falling by almost 7% from a year ago and by 3% from the previous year.

Sault Ste. Marie 😍
Intermittently the fastest growing city in Ontario, the affordable housing market in Sault Ste. Marie grew in 2022 thanks to the influx of out-of-town buyers who enabled its benchmark real estate prices to finally reach the $300,000 range. The benchmark price reached a peak of $320,700 in May 2022 and held above $300,000 for three more months, signalling a particularly active summer market. The benchmark price fell somewhat in the final quarter of 2022, ending the year at $275,400.

Buyers looking for detached, single-family homes and investors looking for multi-family apartments were the two groups that were in high demand in 2022. The detached three-bedroom house was in high buyer demand when it came to family housing. Duplexes, triplexes, and anything else that provided passive household income moved swiftly for multi-family residences.

North Bay 😍
North Bay is once again among the top three best locations to purchase real estate. North Bay, which is located on Lake Nipissing in northeastern Ontario, is only 125 kilometres away from Sudbury.

One of the most affordable places in Canada to buy real estate is North Bay, which had a composite benchmark price at the end of 2022 of $413,525, 47% less than the national average. Despite recent large price increases of 21% in only one year, 83% in three years, and a staggering 90% in five years, this remains the case for most affordable cities.

This is fantastic news for the city’s current homeowners, investors, and potential buyers searching for an entry-level, reasonably priced rental market.

Fredericton 😍
In spite of increasing interest rates, the MLS Home Price Index, which tracks price trends, continues to show a year-over-year increase, according to data from January issued by real estate boards in Moncton, Fredericton, and Saint John

Greater Moncton Realtors’ president Mike Power stated in a press statement that they are “cautiously optimistic” that sales have recovered to their seasonal average.

The overall inventory decreased for the fifth consecutive month, according to Power, as new listings for the month of January continued to trend below average.

As a result, the situation in our area is still fairly tight, and the market balance is shifting more and more in favour of sellers.

St. John 😍
In April, 147 homes were sold, according to the Saint John Real Estate Board. That remained far below typical for this time of year and was down from 151 residences the prior month.

The decline, according to board president Kevin Donovan, was brought on by a drop in the number of listings. In a news release, Donovan suggested that the lack of appealing replacement options in recent months may have discouraged homeowners from listing their homes for sale.

Lower and housing supply thus continued to have an impact on the number of sales in April. In April, there were 216 new listings, a modest rise from the 211 listings in March.

Halifax-Dartmouth 😍
The economic hub of the Maritimes and one of the most populous places in the province is Halifax Regional Municipality, which is located in the capital city of Nova Scotia. This region, which consists of Halifax, Dartmouth, and Bedford, is home to about 440,000 people.

In April 2022, Halifax’s median home price peaked at $603,386. By year’s end, the average price had dropped to $474,389, a decrease of more than 21% over a period of eight months. Competition in the housing market, which has seen record-high house prices and historically low inventory across Canada, is to blame for the early 2022 price increases.

Sudbury 😍
In many cities in northern Ontario, the demand for housing is still high and the supply is scarce. However, 2023 is predicted by local real estate professionals to be a better year for purchasers.

Even if significant demand has decreased from 2022 highs due to rising mortgage rates, according to Adam Haight, chair of the Sudbury Real Estate Board, it is unlikely to recover to pre-pandemic levels.

In 2023, Haight stated, “I genuinely believe that we’re still looking at a sellers’ market, probably through the entire year.”
If interest rates keep rising, there is a possibility that house prices themselves will begin to trend downward.

Windsor Essex 😍
values reached their highest level ever this year, but the market also experienced a sharp fall as interest rates shot up. Some prospective buyers and sellers are now pondering what 2023 might hold in store for the local economy.

Higher borrowing and rising interest rates might not deter some purchasers from making purchases during a strong economy, and sellers who had delayed planned sales might not be prepared to wait much longer. The reduction in housing costs is a significant change in favour of purchasers.

According to information from the Windsor-Essex County Association of Realtors, the monthly average price for a property in Windsor-Essex peaked in March 2022 at $723,739 but has since fallen down to $511,275 for November.

Rideau St. Lawrence 😍
In April 2023, 96 residential units were sold via the Rideau-St. Lawrence Real Estate Board’s MLS® System. This represented a significant decline of 22.6% from April 2022.

In April, home sales fell 13.6% below the 10-year average and 14.7% below the five-year average.

Home sales over the first four months of the year as a whole amounted to 216 units. This marked a significant decrease of 29.4% from the same time in 2022.

A lot more accurately than is feasible with average or median price metrics, the MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) tracks price movements. In April 2023, the aggregate MLS® HPI composite benchmark price was $544,500, a significant drop of 11.7% from April 2022.

Huron Perth 😍
In April 2023, there were a total of 171 houses sold via the MLS® System of the Huron Perth Association of REALTORS®. This represented a significant decrease of 22.3% from April 2022.

For the month of April, home sales fell 6% below the five-year average and 9.6% below the 10-year average.
Home sales over the first four months of the year as a whole amounted to 497 units. This represented a considerable decline of 25.8% from the same time in 2022.

According to Bob Heimpel, president of the Huron Perth Association of REALTORS®, “home sales have fluctuated up and down with no real trend emerging over the past few months, although we can categorically say that activity is not falling.”

Vancouver Island 😍
In the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board (VIREB) region, single-family house sales decreased last month by 26% from a year earlier (515), but increased by 73% from February 2023 (220).

Sales of condo apartments were 66 in March 2023, a 6% increase from the prior month and a 46% decrease from the same month last year. Row/townhouse sales increased by 54% from February to 77 units in March, a decrease of 26% from a year earlier.

Kawartha Lakes 😍
In April 2023, 76 residential properties sold through the Kawartha Lakes Real Estate Association Inc.’s MLS® System. This represented a significant decrease of 38.7% from April 2022.

For the month of April, home sales were 36.7% and 27.8% below the five-year and 10-year averages, respectively.

Home sales over the first four months of the year as a whole amounted to 251 units. This represented a considerable drop of 29.7% from the same time in 2022.

Canada's hot real estate market continues to attract both domestic and international investors. In 2023, prospective investors are looking for markets that

02/02/2024

If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. - Proverbs 24:10

Make the ordinary come alive...the extraordinary will take care of itself.
William Martin - Author

Happy Groundhog Day!

01/04/2024

Win Tickets to Ukulele Workshop at Oxford ESL school, January 10, 2024 on Do604

12/27/2023

Can a normal person buy an island?
Sweden has 270 000 islands. World record! You can easily buy an island in Sweden. BUT You are not allowed to build anything on it. There is a law that prohibits building something within 100 m from the beach.

12/25/2023

I don't believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you could be.

12/21/2023

Not everything on the list is banned, and some prohibitions won't take effect until 2025

What products are being banned by these new regulations?
There are six categories of single-use plastic products that are being banned, including:

Checkout bags.
Cutlery.
Takeout ware with plastics that are hard to recycle.
Plastic aluminum can ring carriers.
Stir sticks.
Straws.

Why are plastic drink lids for disposable beverages not on the list?
While plastic cup lids are one of the top items found on shoreline cleanups, the federal government said that it settled on the six categories of products for a number of reasons: they are found in the environment during clean ups, they pose a threat to wildlife, they are difficult to recycle and they can be replaced with alternatives.

"With regard to plastic lids used for disposable coffee cups in particular, limited alternatives to this item were identified as being available at this time," the government said in a statement.

Will this make much of a dent in Canada's plastic waste?
Not a large one.🤨

In June, the Liberal government announced it will ban some single-use plastic items in an effort to achieve zero plastic waste by 2030, but only a limited number of products fall under the ban and some of the prohibitions don’t kick in until 2025.

12/21/2023

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/single-use-plastics-explained-1.6498061

'We won't change the regulation for one company,' Environment Minister Guilbeault says😒

"The United Nations has called plastic pollution the second biggest environmental crisis of our time after climate change,"

The government of Alberta, which is also intervening in the case, said it "firmly objected" to listing plastic items as toxic. In a statement, it called on Ottawa to "stop ignoring Alberta-made innovations" like a compostable grocery shopping bag that will be banned under the upcoming single-use bag prohibition.😘

'Not all compostable plastics are created equal'

In June, the Liberal government announced it will ban some single-use plastic items in an effort to achieve zero plastic waste by 2030, but only a limited number of products fall under the ban and some of the prohibitions don’t kick in until 2025.

12/21/2023

Environment and Climate Change Canada's Single-use Plastics Prohibition Regulations will prohibit the sale of plastic checkout bags, cutlery, food service ware, stir sticks and straws in Canada after December 20.

Those regulations are part of the department's plan to address pollution and prevent plastic waste.

The department said 15 billion single-use plastic checkout bags were sold in Canada in 2019 and close 57 million straws are used daily.

In a submission to the court filed earlier this month, the federal government argued that even if the Federal Court is inclined to side with the industry, these items would still be listed as toxic under the law because that measure is now backed by Parliament.

WHAT ON EARTH?Is plastic-free plastic even possible?

09/30/2022

Did you know that every time you use a credit card online or over the phone that the vendor is charged an ADDITIONAL FEE? This is called a CARD NOT PRESENT fee (CNP). And the card companies like Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover do it to cover their increased risk. This why many small businesses avoid taking cards over the phone, or have transaction fees for online purchases – to cover those added fees. Most companies pay close to 3% in fees to take your credit card INSIDE their store or restaurant. The CNP fees for a phone or online order can add an additional 2-3% to each transaction depending on the card type. That means the fee on a $10 transaction goes from $0.30 to $0.60. While not a lot of money during regular times, during COVID19 times when every penny counts, these fees are real money being lost by small businesses.

Other small businesses, who are not deemed essential, are being forced to close, and yet they are STILL being charged their monthly fees by the credit card companies regardless of whether they are making sales or not. Sadly these fees are literally sucked from the bank accounts of small businesses without them being able to stop them!

Demand Visa, MasterCard, AMEX & Discover Reduce/Waive Certain Fees during COVID 19

06/14/2022

Stat: Brands are throwing away more than $1 billion a year in advertising spend because their commercials are playing on streaming platforms even while TVs are off, a new study by GroupM and iSpot.tv found. Viewers don’t always exit or pause the streaming app before hitting the power button on their TV, meaning that the show (and the ads) could still run in the background. About 17% of ads on TVs connected through streaming devices are being shown to no one, the study found.