Ed Silva CDPE, GRI, ABR, Real Estate Agent

Saturday I posed about the annual Pumpkin Festival here in Prospect, Ct. We had heavy rains, so the fest was shifted to Sunday, which was a great fall day.

Center street in Prospect was closed off, people paraded past the 'contestants' and appreciated the handiwork. Unfortunately the winners must have been pre-judged while the kids were at school and before they were lined up for viewing.

While there the 'contestant' were gathered up by their owners and by the end of the evening all of them had been claimed and returned home.

I went by the following morning and the reviewing stands were barren, well, almost. All but one 'contestant' had found it's way back home. Overall the fest was a great success, and this little town of 11,000 enjoyed another family day, well almost. The first photo is the reviewing stand on the morning after, as is the second.

Sunset at the North Pole

This was just shared with me, and I thought it to be just to great not to share.

Photographed during the week of May 11, 2009

This is the sunset at the North Pole with the moon at its closest point.

A scene you will probably never get to see in person.

And, you also see the sun below the moon.

An amazing photo and not one easily duplicated

From 5 to 9 pm today, with a rain date of Sunday, the contestants will be lined up on the stands, waiting impatiently as the judges make their way reviewing, judging, and just enjoying the contest.

Today is the 6th Annual Pumpkin Festival.

The day the kids get to put their pumpkins on display for all to see their handywork!

There will be food vendors,

The special Halloween vehicle and kids parade fully costumed

The pumpkin judging

And a grand time for everyone

It was long and a times trying but we got through the second day of the CDPE class with a better understanding and hopefully some expert counsel. CDPE stands for Certified Distressed Property Expert. The name is a little misleading because the class is truly focused on giving an agent the tools to help people avoid foreclosure.

After having had a misfortune with a short sale I have been reluctant to get back to them, but as the market is getting to be so saturated with short sale listings that seem to be just floating in the system, taking the course at lest offers a constructive mechanism of getting progress and keeping the transaction moving.

I got so committed after the first day, that my last bit of busines last night was to structure my next ads to reaching out to people in trouble. I have an ex agent that has ocnsented to be my mentor, and she has been very successful with short sales, so maybe she'll guide me and I may be able to give here some structure as well.

Time will tell, but if I can at least keep one family from getting foreclosed, then the time spent will be justified.

Last week I put out an SOS on a classon short sales entitled Certified Distressed Property Expert CDPE. I didn't get the answers I was looking for, but a twist with a couple of new listings over the weekend gave me the nudge I needed.

I have worked a couple of short sales, with a 50% success rate, which I don't feel was good enough. This is an area where the consistent expertise is the best service we can give a client, after all for them it's do or face financial collapse for a number of years. Going into the class I was hoping that I would learn to be more effective with the process and gain some insight on making the process more productive, and after the first day, I have high hopes and a renewed enthusiasm.

The CDPE class is well presented, well defined and offers the materials to get the job done. The instructor is literally taking us through the process step by step, and giving the class the information we want. I am somewhat of a novice in this field so I may be a little easier to impress, but with over 100 people in attendance, the feedback and interaction from people that have gone through short sales and are enthused by the presentation and materials being offered is inspiring.

The course is not a NAR recognized designation, but NAR is starting up a parallel designation so obviously there is a need to recognize the problem. As noted elsewhere, there are a rash of resets to ARM's coming due over the next 3 years. This obviously shows a trend for the need, and we should have all the knowledge we can get to make it work for us and for our clients.

I hope to be able to do a follow up to this post when the class is done, and maintain a continuing flow on the subject as a way of maybe assisting somebody else. At the end of the day, it's about a service to avoid foreclosures.