I had the pleasure of being a guest on Michal Zafir's morning show on Channel 10. In the interview, we discussed two mistakes people make when preparing to purchase an apartment. Of course, I didn't mention the main mistake of consulting someone whose interests differ from ours, because I'm quite sure my readers already understand. A bank has a mortgage broker and not a mortgage advisor.. But the next step in our deliberations is to consult with those we've been accustomed to consulting from the moment we learned to speak – our parents. They are available, experienced, and surely have our best interests at heart.Why not consult with parents about a mortgage?So, why shouldn't we consult our parents? In an interview, I explained to Michal that parents are, to a large extent, too much in our favor.We tell them that we found a wonderful apartment near a park where we can play with our future children (our future grandchildren) with at least five exposures, etc. Our parents see us glowing about finding the apartment. What are the chances they'll want to bring us down and say something like, 'Can you show us your plan for paying back the mortgage in 6 years if the interest rate goes up?"This won't happen. The parents are too emotionally involved. Additionally, parents generally don't have the technological means, nor necessarily full information regarding our income and expenses, and many other data points.Even parents whose profession is economics aren't regularly involved in forecasting future interest rate changes, nor do they necessarily have readily available the technological tools to translate these forecasts into numbers.What do our parents typically have? A set of beliefs and outlooks on life that have taken shape over the course of their lives. In other words, if they are 70 years old and formed their views at age 22, for example, then we can say that a large part of their outlook on life took shape about fifty years ago, when the entire economic system was different in many ways. Ask your parents how they cope with prices rising by 50% in a single month? (The 1980s) Answer: They buy lots of canned goods on payday. The situation is even more serious, because our parents, too, inherited many of their economic views from their parents. Now we’re talking about the economy of the early 20th century in Morocco, Poland, or any other country from which our grandparents came.Consulting with friends about a mortgage is also problematic.Another source for gathering information is friends. Problem! We are usually surrounded by people who are a good fit for us. Meaning, often similar to us. So we consult with friends whose views are initially similar to ours and then think, okay, if "everyone" thinks this way, it must be right.News flash, it's not "everyone" who thinks like that, but our friends think like that, and our friends are, in the first place, similar to us in many ways. We talk to the mirror (more or less) and then reach an agreement with our reflection in the mirror that everyone thinks like that. What's more, if we want to listen to "Everyone"It would be wise for us to first check if "everyone" is satisfied with the results they reached with their decisions. Clients who approach me often say, "I want a low refund because the refund Always Rising. The return doesn't always rise. The return "always" rose for "everyone" because those everyone acted in a certain way that isn't necessarily the correct way.Consult Google and Facebook about the mortgage?Okay, we have Google and Facebook left. You can really get a wide variety of opinions, right? An unbiased algorithm will give us a correct answer from Google or "the wisdom of the crowd" will give a correct answer from Facebook. These aren't friends or family, this is "the wisdom of the crowd." Right?That's not right at all. Google and Facebook always aim to bring you the most accurate information. The simple issue is that most people think about the definition of "accurate" in a completely different way than Facebook and Google do.When we think of the word 'right," we think of true, accurate, well-founded, etc. Facebook and other entities that work with algorithms think of "right" in the following way: what will keep the user in our environment the longest and thereby expose them to the most advertisements.Companies hold information that allows them to guess quite well what we think about a certain topic, and then when we search for that topic, we get the most relevant results. Us. There have been many discussions with these corporations on sensitive issues. Mark Zuckerberg, for example Protect people's right to see posts that claim the Holocaust is a fabrication.. According to him, the fact that the person publishing these posts is "innocently mistaken" does not justify censoring them.Now, let's assume I discover neo-Nazi leanings. If the news Facebook feeds me is about International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I'll leave it and stop seeing ads. Conversely, if I keep seeing more and more posts from "innocent believers" "proving" that there was no Holocaust, I'll stay in front of the screen longer, see more ads, and eventually, I might buy something useless. But I'll also get the impression that "everyone thinks there was no Holocaust.".The exact same thing happens in Google searches. At least in the news section and under local businesses, for several years now, Google has been providing everyone with different search results based on what it thinks is "suitable" for that person. It's not for nothing that the Chrome browser asks you to "sign in" when you use it. This way, Google can document all the sites you've visited and know what type of results to bring you.For example, when you type "meat" in the search bar, do you want to see a steak recipe, or do you want information about the upcoming vegan protest? When you type "Bologna," do you want directions to the city of Bologna or to a "Bologna" restaurant in Tel Aviv? And so on. In fact, both Google and Facebook echo back to us what we've already thought, thereby reducing our ability to receive new information. This is only problematic in the political and business worlds when we want to make a decision on a topic about which we have no knowledge.What can be done?First, understanding the problem is a big part of solving it. After we understand the limitations of the network, parents, and friends, we can still ask them but be aware of all the flaws in the answers we receive.The next step is, of course, to search for information from reputable sources. A reputable economic book or newspaper is usually a good source. You want a source of information that, if it writes inaccurate information, will have something to lose. That is, if the information came from the website http://mashkanta4all.com (a website I made up) and there is no person behind it who cares about their reputation (because they don't have one yet, and because their name doesn't appear on the website at all), you should take the information with a grain of salt.Compared to someone who has cultivated a positive reputation for years. Always pay attention to potential conflicts of interest with those from whom you receive advice. When choosing a mortgage advisor, Ensure that your payment to the consultant is not dependent on the answer they give to any question, including a question like "Should I take out a mortgage?" Another good source of information is lectures. People usually prepare well before lectures. It's not pleasant to be challenged in front of an audience.