Last year at the Coldwell Banker GenBlue Conference in Las Vegas, I met a great lady from Coldwell Banker Bain Seal by the name of Linda Aaron.  Linda and I first met via twitter, where she goes by the handle @skynnard.

Having shared ideas and laughs while together in Vegas, I recall following up with Linda in an online conversation afteward, and asking how she came to use the @skynnard handle.

Turns out it was an evolution of sorts, and in discussing it, we both discovered that she wasn’t the only tie to real estate in the saga.

One of Linda’s good friends at some point took to calling her “Lynyrd”, evoking the name of the great southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd.  The name stuck, and when Lynda joined Twitter back in February of 2009, she adopted a handle that played off of that.

So Linda’s handle and nickname are a phonetic play on her name.  Most followers of rock history know that the name Lynyrd Skynyrd is a mocking tribute to the high school Phys Ed teacher, Leonard Skinner, who upheld strict rules against boys with long hair. According to wikipedia, guitarist Gary Rossington dropped out of high school because he was tired of being hassled over his long hair by Skinner.

What Linda didn’t know is that Leonard Skinner was not only a Phys Ed teacher, but he also sold real estate.  Why I had some recollection of this in my head, I’ll never know… but I quickly found the photo below and shared it with Linda.

What will you discover this year?  What new friendships will you form, and what will you learn about yourself in the progress?  You’ll only discover if you reach out, stretch, learn and expose yourself to the opportunity and pull some threads to see where they lead.

I can’t wait to see what GenBlue brings this year!

The newest member of our “team” will be joining our board of REALTORS this morning, which prompted her to ask me about the Code of Ethics all REALTORS swear to abide by, which gave me the opportunity to share with her the preamble to the Code, something which speaks to me every time I read it:

“Under all is the land. Upon its wise utilization and widely allocated ownership depend the survival and growth of free institutions and of our civilization.

REALTORS® should recognize that the interests of the nation and its citizens require the highest and best use of the land and the widest distribution of land ownership. They require the creation of adequate housing, the building of functioning cities, the development of productive industries and farms, and the preservation of a healthful environment.

Such interests impose obligations beyond those of ordinary commerce. They impose grave social responsibility and a patriotic duty to which REALTORS® should dedicate themselves, and for which they should be diligent in preparing themselves. REALTORS®, therefore, are zealous to maintain and improve the standards of their calling and share with their fellow REALTORS® a common responsibility for its integrity and honor.”

The balance of the preamble can be read here.

Here’s what I hear when I read that first sentence:
Under all is the land: the very foundation of this country is the land from which and upon which the nation was created.
Upon its wise utilization: waste not, want not. Don’t spoil the land. Make good use of the resource you have.
…and widely allocated ownership depend the survival and growth of free institutions and of our civilization: Reflective of the roots of our democracy, that real property rights- the right to freely and appropriately use real property- and the freedom to engage in commerce and seek our own success, are the keystones to our way of life.

I honestly, truly believe in the role that REALTORS can and do play in building communities, in shaping and encouraging economic growth, in helping others achieve the stability and pride that a home of their own can provide, and that ownership of real estate offers an significant opportunity to build wealth.

That’s why I’m so passionate about identifying and developing the next generation of real estate rockstars, those who will champion this industry for years to come. The opportunity to impact the lives of others is amazing, and the generation now entering the real estate market, the Millienials or Gen Y, is HUGE. This generation will impact society every bit as much as the Boomers did, and more.

There will always be opportunities for people of all ages and generations in this business, but right now there is a disproportionate need and opportunity for younger professionals. We just have to go out and find them.

For the most part in more rural markets, we don’t focus much on price per square foot- there just aren’t enough similar properties to make a comparison. Said another way, when it comes to Northwest Michigan Real Estate, most homes are somewhat unique, whether is it the amount of land, or the view, or the style or construction.

Full disclosure- I am reposting this not just to share the information, but as a demonstration/experiment in affect of blogging on search relative to Holland Michigan Homes.

Posted via email from Matt’s posterous

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

There’s really nothing I can add to that!

Downhill skiing has been great at Crystal Mountain Resort.  I was out last Sunday, which was the first cold day after the thaw, and the conditions were remarkably good- major kudos to the snowmaking and grooming crew.  The downhill course on the North face was a favorite addition for my oldest son and I.

While Crystal has Nordic ski trails as well, the cross country trails in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore are my favorites.  I’ll admit it has been a few years since I’ve been out on them, but there is something about skiing in the lakeshore that is special.  Once you get away from the trailhead, almost all the sounds are natural- wind through the trees, waves crashing on the shoreline a mile away, birds and squirrels are the back singers to the sounds of your breathing and the “swick swick” of your skis.  While the area immediately along the shoreline gets a bit less snow that we do inland, the trails there should be back in shape soon if they aren’t already.

The National Lakeshore is a great asset.  I can’t help but think of all the outdoor opportunities it presents when I’m showing properties nearby.  The beauty of having this linear type National Park – it features 35 miles of Lake Michigan coastline – is that it is quickly accessible from so many locations.  In fact, as I write this, there are 145 properties available within a couple miles of the South Unit of the Lakeshore- some literally at the very edge of the park.

A lot of what I learned about honor, I learned from my parents. Today I’m thinking about a lesson I learned from my dad, and it’s about honoring our Veterans.

Dad didn’t actually teach me this lesson himself. I learned this lesson from my dad via his very good friend, Theo. Theo is much like a second dad (or sometimes an older brother) to me. Theo served in Vietnam, and carries the toll that the war took on him to this day as he fights the early onset of Parkinson’s disease.

In College, I took a course on the history of the Vietnam war one fall semester, and as luck would have it, Theo and I spent time together that fall traveling to hunting camp. Just he and I in a dark truck on a cold night, going somewhere we loved to go. We talked about his experiences and what I’d learned. About wild times in his past and about love and friendship.

And then Theo told me that when he returned from Vietnam my father showed up at his door to thank him for his service. And that my dad was the only one that made it a point to thank him for many many years.  (repost note: This line still makes me tear up, especially as I now have friends who had never been thanked until I did it.)

Every year on Veterans Day, I make it a point to thank whomever I know who has served our country in time of war. I’ll start making phone calls as soon as I collect myself after writing this, as I could not make it through this post without tears welling up in my eyes and my nose starting to run.

I was touched by comments the Joe Theismann made yesterday when he spoke at a conference I attended. I happened to be videotaping at the time, and have posted that video on YouTube.

I’m extremely fortunate not to have lost a loved one in a war. But I’m even more fortunate to live freely, happily and safely in this wonderful experiment in democracy known as America.  Have you thanked a veteran lately?

Run Norm!

hours earlier this year in the Kettle Moraine 100.  And now he’s training to take part in the Run Across Ethiopia which aims to raise $100,000 for youth education in that country, including construction of much needed schools.  The good that can be done with these funds is immense- our dollars go so much farther there than they do here, and the need is great.

This is a 400 kilometer (that’s about 248 miles) taking place over 12 days.  That means Norm and his fellow runners will be running about 20 miles a day, every day for 12 days in a row.  They’ll be joined along the way by local runners as they run.

But Norm needs help to get there.  In order to take part, he needs to raise $15,000 in charitable contributions.  He’s got a great start, but there’s still a ways to go.

If you’d like to support Norm, please make a donation to On The Ground using PayPal.  Just make sure you put “Norm” in the note to vendor section so he gets credit.

MAR CEO Bill Martin shared this bit of information on the current foreclosure crisis- that being the inability of large banks to property document their foreclosure rights.  I couldn’t do justice to John Carney’s commentary from his “Net Net” on CNBC.com, so I’m going to quote his post in its entirety:

A Primer On The Foreclosure Crisis

Published: Monday, 11 Oct 2010 | 2:48 PM ET

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By: John Carney
Senior Editor, CNBC.com

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Last week, Bank of America announced that it was halting foreclosures in all fifty-states while it reviewed its foreclosure process for defects. Now several lawmakers on Capitol Hill are calling for other banks to initiate nationwide foreclosure freezes—a move which the Obama administration is currently opposing.

Photo: Jeff Turner

So what’s going on here? Why is the foreclosure machinery of our nation’s largest banks suddenly grinding to a halt? What does this mean for the financial sector and the economy?

Let’s start with the most basic questions first. Then I’ll explain some of the possible implications for homeowners, banks, and the economy.

How did this thing get started?

Ever since the housing bubble burst, there have been signs that there are serious problems with foreclosure practices. In some cases, the financial institution claiming it owns the mortgage has not been able to produce the underlying loan documents. In 2007, a federal judge held that Deutsche Bank lacked standing to foreclose in 14 cases because it could not produce the documents proving that it had been assigned the rights in the mortgages when they were securitized.

This decision was followed by similar rulings in other states stopping foreclosure proceedings. Typically the judges would find that the banks that were servicing mortgages pooled into bonds weren’t able to prove they owned the mortgages.

Why can’t they prove they own the mortgages?

Every time a mortgages changes hands, the new owners are supposed to receive an “assignment” of the mortgage notes from the buyers. The assignment is typically a short little document signed by both the seller and buyer of the mortgage acknowledging the sale, which is then attached to the mortgage documents themselves and delivered to the new owner.

When a mortgage is securitized it is typically sold to a Wall Street firm, which pools the mortgage with thousands of others. Investors buy slices of the pool, entitling them to cash-flows from the mortgage payments. The actual mortgages are assigned to a newly created investment vehicle. A servicer is tasked with ensuring the payments to borrowers get divided up properly and that delinquent borrowers get foreclosed upon.

Here’s where things get tricky. When a mortgage is securitized, the investors in the mortgage bonds don’t get assignments or notes. The investment vehicle doesn’t get the assignments or notes either. Instead, the physical notes are typically sent to a document repository company. The transfer of interests is noted in an electronic database.

But during the height of the housing bubble, investment banks were churning out mortgage bonds in such a frenzy, sometimes the assignments never got executed and mortgage notes never got delivered. Keep in mind that this was during the years when lenders were giving out low-doc and no-doc mortgages. It was inevitable that the fast and loose and slightly documented culture would not stop at the mortgage originator but stretch all the way through the process. (For more on this, see RortyBomb’s excellent discussion of the securitization process, complete with nifty and highly informative charts.)

For most mortgages, the note probably still exists somewhere. One problem that has arisen, however, is that some of the original mortgage lenders have gone under or been acquired by a larger bank. This can make tracking down the notes difficult, if not impossible.

Why am I just learning about this mess now?

This issue has been quietly simmering in the background of the housing crisis for quite some time. Gretchen Mortgenson of the New York Times wrote about it back in 2007. It gave rise to a “show me the note” movement of people contesting foreclosure proceedings.

But what really kicked off the latest developments was the deposition of a GMAC loan officer named Jeffrey Stephan, which revealed deep and perhaps pervasive flaws in the foreclosure practices of our largest banks.

Stephan admitted in a sworn deposition in Pennsylvania that he signed off on up to 10,000 foreclosure documents a month for five years. He said that he hadn’t reviewed the mortgage or foreclosure documents thoroughly. He quickly became known by the pejorative “robo-signer” for this way of getting mortgages through. This prompted Ally, which owns the GMAC mortgage company, to halt foreclosures in 23 so-called “judicial states.”

Because Stephan also signed foreclosures for hundreds of other mortgage companies, including J.P. Morgan Chase [JPM  40.32  -0.08  (-0.2%)   ] , the problem is not limited to GMAC. In fact, JP Morgan Chase also halted foreclosures in the judicial states.

Wait, what’s this about judicial states?

The majority of states in the country allow banks to foreclose on defaulted mortgages without going to court. They simply deliver the borrower a notice of the foreclosure sale. This is the method of foreclosure preferred by banks, since it is much faster and easier to execute the foreclosure sale, and much more difficult for borrowers to contest.

Twenty-three states, however, require banks to go to court to get a foreclosure order. These are the “judicial states.” In these states, banks are typically required to produce a sworn and notarized affidavit of a loan officer and submit the mortgage documents. Often, however, judges will issue foreclosure orders without the mortgage documents so long as the borrower doesn’t contest this point.

Keep in mind that in both judicial and non-judicial states, there are strong legal presumptions that favor the banks. So long as they have the mortgage note and the loan is delinquent—or so long as no one argues that they aren’t the owners of the mortgage or that borrower is not in default—the bank will almost always get the foreclosure.

But as the “show me the note” movement took off, more and more homeowners began to contest foreclosures by demanding to see the notes and, if the loan had been transferred or securitized, the assignment agreements. This typically was not fatal to banks seeking foreclosures. They could make up for the lost notes with lost note affidavits and retro-actively build an assignment chain. The worst that would happen, from the bank’s perspective, was that the foreclosure would be delayed.

In some cases, however, banks seem to have not even been able to manage even this kind of corrective action. Evidence has been produced to show that notarizations have been faked, documents forged, and folks like Stephan have simply been operating as foreclosure bots.

So is this just a concern for “judicial states?”

Although banks first shut down foreclosures in judicial states, the lack of documentation is a problem in any jurisdiction. Homeowners contesting foreclosures in both non-judicial and judicial states can win if the bank cannot provide documents proving it owns the mortgage.

In judicial states, however, the banks are especially exposed because they must initiate a lawsuit to get a foreclosure. If they have been submitting false documents to the court, they could be sanctioned and fined. Realizing that they had few internal controls over their own foreclosure practices, banks wisely shut down foreclosures in the states where they had the most exposure.

In non-judicial states, banks aren’t required to submit anything to the court until they are sued by a homeowner seeking to stop a foreclosure. That means that they are far less likely to submit fraudulent documents, since the process has already been slowed. Nonetheless, banks may still find themselves swamped by challenges. No one really knows how badly the missing documentation problem is at the banks.

The Wall Street Journal told me this is just about “paperwork” and politics. Are we making a mountain out of a molehill?

Our friends at the Journal are seriously misguided on this issue. (Note: my brother, Brian Carney, is on the editorial board of the Journal.)

The requirement that banks be able to prove ownership of mortgages by producing notes and assignments reflects a long-settled view about the necessity of written contracts in real estate transactions. Long before the founding of our Republic, England adopted what is commonly called the “Statute of Frauds.” It required that real estate conveyances be recorded in writing and signed. Similar laws apply in almost every state in the Union.

Part of the point of the writing requirement is to allow the government the transparency it needs to enforce property rights, including the right to foreclose on a home. If courts were to treat this as mere “paperwork” that was irrelevant to the cases, both property rights and the rule-of-law would suffer. It’s surprising that the Journal’s editorial page would take this stance.

Now, if the problem truly is just sloppy work on the part of robo-signers, banks can likely resume foreclosures before too long. But many suspect that the reason banks were falsifying their knowledge about the possession of loan documents is that the banks do not actually have the documents and don’t know where to find them. This could permanently impair their ability to foreclose on some properties.

What does this mean for the banks?

In the first place, the slowdown in foreclosure sales might hit the revenues of the banks. The defaulted loans aren’t spinning off revenue and now the foreclosures aren’t producing revenue either. If the foreclosure freezes last long enough, this could it the bottom lines of the banks. At the very least, banks should be adjusting the estimates on the likelihood of short-term recovery values for their mortgage portfolios.

The fact that banks securitized loans but did not get proper assignments of the mortgage notes may find themselves liable to lawsuits from investors. A typical mortgage bond issuance includes representations and warranties that all the proper documentation has been obtained. Banks could find themselves liable for a breach of these warranties.

This could also turn into a fight between investors of junior and senior tranches of mortgage bonds. Here’s how the Journal describes this fight:

When houses that have been packaged into a mortgage bond are liquidated at a foreclosure sale—the very end of the foreclosure process—the holders of the junior, or riskiest debt, would be the first investors to take losses. But if a foreclosure is delayed, the servicer must typically keep advancing payments that will go to all bondholders, including the junior debt holders, even though the home loan itself is producing no revenue stream.

The latest events thus set up an odd circumstance where junior bondholders—typically at the bottom of the credit structure—could actually end up better off than they expected. Senior bondholders, typically at the top, could end up worse off.

Not surprisingly, senior debt holders want banks to foreclose faster to reduce expenses. Junior bondholders are generally happy to stretch things out. What is more, it isn’t entirely clear how the costs of re-processing tens of thousands of mortgages will be allocated. Those costs could be “significant” said Andrew Sandler, a Washington, D.C., attorney who represents mortgage companies.

The most damaging thing that could happen to banks would be the discovery that they simply cannot prove they hold a mortgage on a house. In that case, the loan would probably have to be written down to near zero. Even for current loans, the regulatory reserve requirements would double as the loan would no longer be a functional mortgage but an ordinary consumer loan. Depending on the size of the “no docs” portion of the loan portfolio, this might be a minor blip or require a bank to raise new capital to fill the hole in the balance sheet.

What does this mean for the housing market and the economy?

Get ready to hear the phrase “pig through the python” a lot. For example, “We need to get the pig through the python very quickly so that the market can be free of uncertainty.”

This is the favorite metaphor of bankers discussing the foreclosure crisis. The idea is that anything that slows down foreclosures will unsteady the housing market. There’s a lot of truth to this. Buyers will hesitate to bid on foreclosure sales if they are not confident the foreclosure is legitimate. Other buyers may worry that the lack of foreclosure sales in an area is a false indicator of the health of the local housing market.

Banks concerned about the recovery values of their mortgage portfolios and higher capital requirements, may pull back lending even further than they already have. In short, this could be the beginning of the second leg of the credit crunch.

____________________________________________________
Companies mentioned in the post

Bank of America [BAC  13.531  0.011  (+0.08%)   ]

Deutsche Bank [DB  57.88  1.98  (+3.54%)   ]

JPMorgan [JPM  40.32  -0.08  (-0.2%)   ]

Questions? Comments? Email us at NetNet@cnbc.com

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© 2010 CNBC.com

Fog rolls off of Crystal Lake on a frosty fall morning

We’ve seen this in our family since the days when we were developing condominiums overlooking Crystal Lake.  We found that we had plenty of traffic looking at the condos during the summer, but lots of those people had their summer lodging already accounted for.  Come fall, the kids would be back in school, the colors would be turning, and the desire to own a place “up north” would have grown, resulting in sales.

This year seems to be holding fast to that pattern, with really solid levels of new inquiries and activity on a whole range of properties, but most significantly those that appeal to a vacation buyer.

Once we move beyond the fall season and into winter, the number of new buyer inquiries will diminish, although activity from existing prospects continues.  Those new prospects that do come to us during this period tend to be very serious.  Think about it- if you’re looking at a lakefront property in February, you’re pretty darn serious about buying one.  And yes, I have shoveled snow off of the ice in front of a house to see if the ice was clear enough so the buyer could get a look through it at the lake bottom in front of the cottage they were considering buying.

On a side note, fall is my favorite time to be out and about showing property- the air is crisp, the colors are amazing, and opportunities to hike larger parcels of land are more common and more pleasant than in the heat of the summer.

Stop by Crystal Lake Elementary in Benzonia tonight beginning at 5:30 and take part in Chrysler’s Drive for your Schools program.  The crew from Watson’s Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep will be there with new vehicles to test drive, and Chrysler will donate $10 per test drive to our schools.

I’m hoping they bring a Challenger… of course, I might not bring that one back if they do.

Posted via email from Matt’s posterous