Jerry Gardner

Not so funny really. And it was my drivers license that caused me the issue. I thought I'd share this so others won't do what I did.

It was time to get my drivers license renewed. I went to the secretary of State, gave them all my information and was told there was an issue. It seems that I had an outstanding ticket. The kicker was that it was from Illinois. I hadn't lived in Illinois for almost 25 years. I certainly hadn't gotten a ticket the times I'd been back. I called the Secretary of state for Illinois and was told that this ticket was from a town called Hardin, which is a very small (tiny) little place situated between the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.

Did I mention it was small?

Well in 1985 I was trying to get home to Alton from a wedding in Quincy and was going a little fast. O.k. I was going real fast. the officer pulled me over , wrote the ticket and I was on my way. I thought I paid the ticket, really, I thought I did. A couple of months later I moved to Michigan and never thought about it again.

Guess what. There is a thing called the National Data Registry. It took forever, but that's finally where the ticket showed up. I also wondered what interest on a 24 year old ticket would be. I was a little nervous.

Now Illinois isn't a backward state regardless of what you here in the new about Governors, Senators and all around political shenanigans. Still, I wasn't able to take care of this over the internet or phone. The mail would take 3 weeks to 2 months. My license was expiring in four days.

I ended up driving to Hardin Illinois, no easy task let me tell you. Did I mention it was small? The picture below is the jail built in the 1800's and is still in use.

I paid the ticket and went back to Springfield and got reinstated. All this was 145.00 later. Ad on the cost of gas and food and I spent close to 200.00 for the tow days. I was able to stay with a nephew and his family in Bloomington for the evening so I didn't have a hotel bill. All in all, I got off pretty cheap.

Since this happened I've spoken to three other people with unpaid tickets in other states. They had no idea this could come back to bite them. So here I am warning the world.

Go to your respective S of State offices and check this out. It's worth your time.

Best of success

Jerry

Well, if you're still bleary eyed from the lack of sleep with Daylight Savings Time, you may have missed the news that Congress passed the "Making Home Affordable Program" which was created to help as many as 7-9 million people who are making every effort to remain current on their mortgage payments.

What do you mean you didn't know it was daylight savings time already? That could explain why your kid was late for school and you missed a big showing appointment. Bit I digress.

There are basically two parts to the plan. One part is to help homeowners with good payment history, whose mortgage is owned by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. It hope to help these people take advantage of the lower interest rates, even if they don't have enough value in their home to refinance.

The second part of the plan is supposed to help at-risk homeowners with Loan Modifications. It could help people avoid foreclosure by lowering payments. the

The problem still remains that no matter how low the payments are, people can't pay if they're out of work. I don't want to throw cold water on what seems like a nice idea but Friday's jobs report showed 651,000 lost jobs in February. That doesn't count revisions of the last two months which make things worse.

The President and Congress seem to focus on one aspect of the economy, banks while throwing manufacturing to the wolves. While this is going on the banks tighten credit so manufacturers can't make payroll or buy goods. It looks like we're throwing good money after bad.

I hope the President and Congress come to their senses and realize that if auto companies and other employers go out of business you can give all the money in the world to the banks. It won't matter! $165,000,000000.00 to AIG (I know, they're an insurer) and how many billions to Citi? The stock market answered by tanking even farther.

AS the eternal optomist, I know we'll come out of this stronger but I hate to see money wasted when it could have helped so many.

I invite you comments and questions.

Could this be true? Are things starting to pick up here in the "D"(that's Detroit Mi for those who haven't read my previous blogs). I don't want to get carried away with what may just be a blip but any good news is worth sharing.

While I was looking at the Market stats for February, I noticed that the city of Detroit is down to around a 6 months inventory.That's way down form the 21 months we had in January of 08.

Livonia Michigan, where I live and so a lot of my business is down to around 9 months of inventory. Once again, a positive sign since we were at 16 months a year ago.

There may be a lot of reasons for the change. Most notably would be that we have gotten rid of a lot of the dross, the bank owned houses that were torn up and ready to be torn down. It could also be that seller are waiting to put their homes on the market, thereby not flooding the market with inventory.

Call me the eternal optimist, but I'm willing to share good news where I find it. I sure don't see or hear it in the media.

I hope this might bring a little hope to us all.

Best of Success

Jerry

My Monday Moanin' Market Update is getting later and later in the week. So without furthaer adieu, here it is.

Here in the "D" we haven't had a lot of good news but last December brought glad tidings of great joy which shall be unto all men. No I'm not talking about Christmas.

Crain's Detroit Business reported that the region posted 58, 592 sales in 2008 as compared with 49,197 in 2007. this is an increase of 19.1 percent. Each month showed an increase when compared to the previous month. This is significant, especially if someone is loking for investment property.

Oakland County increased sales by 47.6%, the City of Detroit posted a 45.9% gain while Wayne County had a 42.4% increase. Macomb County was the slowest with a gain of 24.3, still significant. Pending sales showed a 43 percent increase in December when compared to 2007.

I'm not going to stand on the roof and scream the recession is over, but good news is good news. It'll bear watching in 2009.

As always, if you know of someone moving to the Detroit area, I'm never too busy for your referrals.

As I sat down to write this post I had some good new to share. Here in "The D" sales were up last month. I was going to share the stats and what this could mean to the rest of the country. Then I turned on the T.V.

As you might guess, Barak Obama was being inaugurated as the 44Th president of the United states of America. Blog forgotten I got wrapped up in the moment. I listened to the speech. I listen to the poet give her recitation (I must admit, I wasn't a big fan but what do I know about poetry). I listened to the Pastor who gave the benediction and even stood as the choir sang the National Anthem. Yes, I was in my living room..alone. It just seemed the right thing to do.

I'll come clean right here. I didn't vote for President Obama. I disagree with much of his beliefs. I tend to lean conservative on the political scale. That being said, I wish him all the best. I hope he succeeds with flying colors.

I'm tired of the vitriol and hate that spews from both the far left and the far right. It's time we came together as Americans. That doesn't mean we won't disagree. This country was built on disagreement. But can't we do it over a Glenlivet as opposed to a boxing ring? Can't we make our discussions civil and realize that we all want what we think is best for the country? I hope so anyway.

I wish for everyone a great new time of hope, work, blessing and the toughness to get through when it seems like you can't.