About Jefferson County, KY

Last night I received a phone call from a family moving to town in the next month or two, and they wanted to go look at only Louisville short sales, thinking that those represented the best deals available on the market. That may be true, or it may not be, I tried to explain to her. Simply by being a short sale, a house does not become more or less valuable, it merely describes the seller's ability to repay the full mortgage amount. My advice is to always judge a house on the same criteria, whether or not it is a foreclosure, short sale or more conventional sale, and make sure that it is right for you and your family. For instance, this couple wanted a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house with an acre of land. Why would she look at a home on only 1/2 acre, simply because it was a short sale? It is still priced at market price, she isn't going to get it for a steal, and it doesn't fit her needs for a home. Just because a home is a short sale does not make it a deal.

Over the past four to six weeks, prices for homes for sale in the St Matthews area of Louisville have seen a pretty dramatic rise, which is in direct conflict with what prices are doing in the greater Louisville housing market. I have posted a few graphs on my blog showing the current asking price of homes for sale in St Matthews, as well as the pricing for homes just coming on to the market. Finally, as prices rise, we would expect a market to be improving, and inventory to be dropping, and guess what, I have included a graph for that as well! If you have any questions about Louisville St Matthews real estate, please don't hesitate to visit my website at www.GregFly.com or please email me at greg@gregfly.com. Of course, you are always free to call me at 502-509-GFLY.

Real Estate is a continuous learning experience. Things you think will or should happen certain ways are always subject to another's thoughts and interpretations. Best rule of thumb is to always get your thoughts down on paper regardless of how obvious the situation may seem. There are plenty of lines on a contract, use them. People will surprise you.

I attended the Greater Louisville Association of Realtors Economic Summit yesterday; very enlightening, up beat and positive. As an area we have done well during the economic downturn and there are some interesting projects in the works for our area. You may not feel upbeat if you're currently unemployed, but other parts of the state and region have done a lot worse. One of the factors that have helped this region is the proximity to the north/south interstate corridors of I-65 and I-75. Although I-64 had some impact, it wasn't has instrumental as the N/S routes. Long tern real estate values have stayed relatively steady. Although a few regions nationally are down 30-40%, they are very specific areas that had huge increases in value over the previous few years (bubbles). Unfortunately they are still the focus of the national news outlets and have had a negative effect on customer perception of their local real estate market and opportunities.