Michael Delaware, CRS, e-Pro

I came across this photo taken with one of my cameras that I had forgotten about.  It was taken on day when I was at the 2011 National Association of Realtors Convention last month in Anaheim, CA.  It was about the fourth day, on a Sunday, and I had just purchased a 'Realtor University' sweatshirt the day before and decided to wear it at the convention.  After wearing a sports coat and tie for all the prior days, I decided by Sunday I was going casual. While I was waiting for some friends, I asked a lady to take my photo in front of the main entrance convention sign. 

When you go to the NAR Convention, and plan to spend a day in the expo, it pays to wear comfortable shoes clothes as you do a lot of walking.  Very long hours on your feet.  You are also asked to wear all kinds of necklaces, pin on buttons, etc.  as you go from booth to booth.  So you can see some of these I am wearing in this photo. It was also a football day, so I was wearing my Detroit Lions cap too.

Anyway, I thought I would share this wacky picture with you from one of my memories at the 2011 NAR Convention in Anaheim.  To all of my friends that were there, I hope you got as much out of it as I did.

This past week in Battle Creek, Michigan we had our first big snowfall. I went out and took some photos when it was still fresh, and I wanted to share one that I really liked. It is a tree in my front yard that had snow beautifully placed on every branch, and it was early in the morning before the temperature rose enough to melt some of it away. I find looking at natures beauty to be refreshing, even though the cold days are tiresome at times. I hope you enjoy this photo.

One of the topics of debate in Michigan is the ever present problem with vandalism during the six month redemption period. Legislators at state level, including the Governor have been proposing a shortening of the 6 month redemption period, to speed up the foreclosure process. Currently the entirety of the foreclosure process can run from between 7 to 12 months, depending on how fast the creditor moves on initiating the process to begin with.

Some homes have been left vacant for as much as 2 or 3 years with voluminous companies like Bank of America and Chase bank as they process their overloaded files of foreclosed homes. In foreclosure by advertisement, Michigan state law requires four weeks of advertising before a sheriff sale can be held. Once the house is sold at Sheriff sale, the six month redemption period begins.

If the bank was slow in the process of starting the advertising process, or their attorney made an error in the legal description advertisement, it can require repeating steps of the process or a delay in the process. This can add considerable time to the period a home is left. If it remains occupied by it original owners when all of these timelines are complete, then the mortgage company will have to initiate an eviction procedure on top of that.

Unfortunately in many cases, the people being foreclosed on engage in retaliation on the house. I have witness homes with holes in the walls of every room, doors ripped off their hinges, kitchen cabinets destroyed, plumbing removed or damaged, furnaces removed, water heaters removed, windows left open in the winter or broken out, etc. In one case I dealt with a few years ago, a lady even left the water running at full blast and flooded the basement with 3 feet of water on the last day she was in the home.

Here are some photos I took recently of a foreclosure I showed that has been sitting on the market for a few months in my area. It really was in a very unsafe condition to look at, as there was broken glass on the ground, electrical torn out, and no lights. Nonetheless, I had some investors insistant on seeing it, so I showed it to them.

Not only do former owners sometimes do damage on leaving, but neighborhood kids will sometimes turn a vacant home into a party house and do damage that way. I have also had instances where homeless people broke in, or the every common occurance of copper thieves breaking in and tearing out all the pipes and wiring for profit. Copper thieves will cause several thousand dollars in damage in pursuit of $100 in copper.

Shortening the redemption period in Michigan might be a solution. I am also in favor of just shortening the entire foreclosure process as a whole, as many other States have, in order to curb damage to property. It might also prevent some people in our present time from taking the easy way out, as in the cases of strategic default. In either case, it is definitely something that deserves consideration and review to reduce the instances of property damage like you see here, which is all too common.

We have all seen it at one point or another. That sign in that tacky tourist trap you have somehow stumbled upon in your travels and you ask yourself, how did I get here and what is that supposed to be? Well here is a challenge for you for your first day of December. I came across this sign at a Gator Park I visited which was part statue and shall we say, wacky-erotic animal art on a large Coca Cola can? Think it needs a caption? I do! Can you write one? Let your creative imaginations roll! Caption this photo!

One of the places my family took my wife and I while visiting Miami, Florida over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend was a place called 'Bayside'.  It is a shopping, restaurant and entertainment district along the one of the major bays in the area, where boats dock right there. 

There is quite a nightlife there, with all kinds of music, dancing, eating and shopping going on.  I enjoyed my time walking around and taking in the atmosphere of the district. 

The place has two levels, with stores and restaurants on top of other ones.  You can stop at a kiosk and get a massage, temporary tattoo, get something special engraved and even sign up for a sight seeing tour of the harbor area in the day, or get on a party boat at night.

Among the restaurants there is the famous 'Bubba-Gump' restaurant themed after the movie Forrest Gump. Here is a photo of me posing on the famous bus stop from the same movie.