This month’s meeting featured Ron Sollish sitting in as Champion while Steve Sallen is on vacation. Ron opened the meeting by initiating a lively conversation about Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma, which have been the big news for the past week. He asked members to opine on how they feel the storms will impact the Michigan real estate industry. The discussion ranged from trade contractors – who are in short supply around Michigan – that might be enticed to work in Houston or Florida following the storms, to uninsured and insured property in the storms’ path, to used cars for sale that were in the flood, to flood insurance and the flood plain, to default rates on mortgages.

Our guest speaker was Olga Stella from the Detroit Creative Corridor Center. She gave a presentation about the power and reach of design and how Detroit is the only dedicated UNESCO design city in the U.S. and how and why Detroit is such a famous design hub.