Is Anybody Worried About This?

Here's one out of left field for you Detroit Tiger fans. With 4 of their players, including 2 major stars, Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen, being natives of Venezuela, is anybody worried that Venezuela's left leaning president, Hugo Chavez could literally end their baseball careers. Pitcher Wil Ledezma and utility infielder Omar Infante are also Venezuelans. I bring this up because Chavez has recently nationalized the Venezuelan oil industry and just this past weekend, closed down his nations top ranked television station, TV-Caracas, after 53 years on the air, allegedly because they were anti-Chavez.

More and more, Mr. Chavez seems to be following in the footsteps of his hero, Cuban boss Fidel Castro and that's my point. I remember as a young boy, Castro banning his Cuban major leaguers from returning to play American baseball. Some of them at that time, like Reds slugger Tony Perez (then playing in the minor leagues) and future Tiger Tony Taylor (then playing with the Cubs), elected not to return to Cuba in order to continue their major league careers. They were then forever banned from returning to their homeland. To this day, the only way a Cuban can play major league baseball is to defect and seek political asylum. It's a shame, because over the years, Cuba had produced some great major leaguers. Mr. Chavez has recognized that the world depends on his nation's oil supply. When will he notice, as Castro did nearly 50 years ago, that his second biggest export is major league baseball players!

Recently, I've been taking clients out to look at new construction homes, "spec" homes if you will. Homes built by the builder on the speculation that someone will but them. Many of those homes I've looked at, have been sitting vacant for not only months, but several years! Their prices have fallen drastically from what the builders were originally asking and their are some great, new home bargains out there. Recently, the U.S. Commerce Department reported that the sale of new construction, soared in April. But now, predictions out of Washington are that it will take at least until 2011 for new home sales to completely recover to where they were 3 or 4 years ago!!

How About Those Red Wings!

Congratulations to the Detroit Red Wings on a fine season, just concluded. When this year began, I doubt that many of us would have predicted that the Wings would reach the NHL's "Final Four," but they did. I know from listening to our two Detroit sports talk radio stations over the past few days, that there are fans out there who are unhappy about the Wings-Ducks series outcome. They complain about everything from Nick Lidstrom's stick to Dominik Hasek in goal. Dom had a great series, make no mistake about it and lets hope, despite his 41 years, that the "Dominator" decides to return for at least one more year with the Wings. He's proven that, even at his age, he's still one of the leagues best goalies. As for Nick, he's always been one of my favorites. Lets continue to marvel at his skills in hopes that he spends a few more years wearing the captain's "C", before he hangs up his skates and returns to Sweden for good. There's a sports waiting for him at the Hockey Hall of Fame when he does skate off into the sunset. He's marvelous to watch and a good person off the ice as well.

It was disappointing to see many empty seats at Joe Louis Arena during the playoffs, but I guess with the local economy being what it is, local sports attendance must suffer, just like we in real estate and our sellers, are also suffering. Yes, it's a buyers market out there right now and I don't see it changing any time soon. My best guess, the local real estate market will begin to improve in the spring of 2008. Meanwhile, if you're a buyer, there's a lot of terrific bargains out there. Your Realtor can show them to you!

I will use this blog to not only comment on the local real estate market, but as you can see, on other issues, both news and sports, as well. Stay tuned as they say in radio 'cause "you ain't seen nothin' yet."