With weather warm and hopefully shower-free in Louisville this Memorial Day weekend, you may be deciding whether to barbeque with the family or hit one of the many events on the schedule for the weekend. Memorial Day is a time for remembering the contributions of those who have died for our country, but also a time to relax and reminisce. Here are a few options if you are looking for different ways to remember the past.
Abbeyroad on the River, the classic Beatle show, is now in Louisville for the 10th year. The five day festival started on May 26, but has two good days left to enjoy a host of visiting bands who have captured the Beatles sound. Based at the Galt House and Belvedere Festival Park, the event will offer some great sound in honor of John Lennon's 70th birthday later this year, plus loads memorabilia and history. There are four indoor stages, plus covered outdoor stages, so it is a rain-or-shine event. Memorial Day weekend is a time for remembering, so why not remember some music of times past that still touches us today?
If Reggae music is your thing, the Kentucky Reggae Festival through May 30 at the Water Tower will offer the island sound you like to chill to, along with Jamaican foods for sale and a Caribbean market to browse In Louisville, it's all about the experience. Bands like Caribbean Conspiracy , Yard Squad, Everton Blender, and Dem Reggae are performing for two or three hours stints, so you can enjoy the music long with the whole Caribbean experience.
Cruising on the Belle of Louisville is a nice relaxing way to spend the early afternoon on Memorial Day. You can join the noon cruise for a buffet picnic lunch or just the site seeing , and be back early enough to enjoy a leisurely afternoon of recreation or other events in Waterfront Park or downtown Louisville. A cruise on the Belle or the other vessel the Sprit of Jefferson are a wonderful way to think back on how important the river was to the development of modern Louisville.
If your idea of holiday fun is bargain hunting at flea markets, Kentucky Flea Market Memorial Day Spectacular is for you. You may be looking for something to add to your collection or you may believe that buying good used clothes, tools, furniture, and appliances offers good value and is an environmentally sound practice. Why increase demand for products that use scarce resources to produce when gently used merchandise could meet your needs? Visit someone else's memory lane at the Kentucky Expo Center West Wing and bring home the bargains.
Have fun this weekend as you relax and remember! My team and I at Younger Group Real Estate can show you affordable homes within your budget in Butchertown, St. Matthews, The Highlands, and other great Louisville neighborhoods near the Derby. We know Louisville!
There’s nothing like Spring to bring out the inner homeowner in all of us. Even though housing has had its challenges over the last few years, recent surveys verify that people want to buy homes even if they are not a good short term investment. So, when someone asks me if it is a good time to buy their first hours in Louisville, I answer with a whole-hearted ”Yes.” This is not just my inner-real estate agent speaking either. Louisville is a city with a low cost of living and plenty of affordable homes.
In 2010, Forbes Magazine noted that in Louisville, owners have to spend about 20% of their income on housing. Considering that some lenders consider 25% - 33% an acceptable range, Louisville offers good value with a lower income commitment. This opens housing to more people.
Right now, there are 6005 homes for sale in Louisville. Over 70% are listed for $200,000 or less,61% are listed for $150,000 or less, and 27% for $100,000 or less. Homeowners have plenty of inventory to select from. As of March 2011, the current price-to-income ratio for Louisville is 2.67 as determined by Realtor median sales prices. A family with an income of about $58,000 could easily buy an average home priced at $155,243 and have over 3,200 homes to choose from while staying within their budget.
Louisville also boasts a low cost of living. Based on the lost food, housing, healthcare, utilities, and transportation, a transfer from Cleveland with a $60,000 salary could live well in Louisville for a comparable salary of $52,030. Housing costs are 70-80% lower than New York City, 42% lower than Chicago, 16% lower than Cleveland, and 13% lower than Atlanta, while other costs are proportionally lower as well.
Of course, to qualify for a mortgage, you must have your debt under control. Lenders want to see that your other loans and credit card debt, combined with the mortgage, do not exceed 36% of your gross income. If you are planning to buy a house, you should apply for pre-approval from the bank, which will tell you the most they will lend you based on your record. The figure the bank gives you is an upper limit. If they say they will lend you up to $175k, you can aim for a less expensive home but have flexibility in your price range.
Yield to your inner homeowner! In Louisville, it is easier to find a home you love at an affordable price than it is in many other larger cities. My team and I at Younger Group Real Estate can show you affordable homes within your budget in Butchertown, St. Matthews, The Highlands, and other great Louisville neighborhoods near the Derby. We know Louisville!
Now that spring has decided to stay around in Louisville, residents are ready to enjoy the parks that are such an important part of the city’s design. The parks you know and love in Louisville have a new name: the Frederick Law Olmsted Parks. Individually named for Indian tribes, the parks will now collectively honor the New England native regarded as the “Father of Landscape Architecture.” The name change was celebrated recently at a public ceremony at the Baringer Hill Pavilion on the Scenic Loop in Cherokee Park, just east of the Cherokee Golf Clubhouse. Olmsted, also known as a social critic, journalist, and public administrator, had great credentials before designing the Louisville Park system 120 years ago. His other works include Central Park in New York City, the U.S. Capitol grounds, the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, Stanford University, and the University of Chicago campuses and municipal park systems in Boston, Buffalo, Milwaukee, and New York among many others throughout the country. Louisville’s park system was the last park system designed by Olmsted before his retirement in 1895, so the system is considered his most mature work. Seeing parks and green space as integral to city life, he believed that parks were not only a good place for parades and sports, but offered harried urban dwellers a chance to enjoy natural scenery. The park system he outlined took advantage of the natural features of Louisville, such as the topography, riverfront, and native woodlands. He then added trees and shrubs to form planned compositions, plus paths and drives to guide park visitors through the landscape. Of the 120 parks in Louisville, Olmsted and his firm, which included his son and stepson who finished his work in Louisville, designed six major parks and 15 neighborhood parks, squares, and playgrounds throughout the city. The most prominent parks in the system are Iroquois (south), Cherokee (east), and Shawnee (west). Today, the parks are unified by system of six parkways that unifies the series of parks and open spaces in the city. Since 1982, the park system was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The Olmsteds also influenced the general design of Louisville, as they also designed residential subdivisions, estates, institutional and religious grounds, country clubs, cemeteries, arboreta, and gardens. Both the University of Louisville and public library are examples of Olmsted design. Over the years, the parks fell into disrepair. A Force 5 tornado in 1974 uprooted trees and destroyed the historic landscape. In the late 1970’s, the Friends of Olmsted Parks encouraged Mayor Jerry Abramson to establish a Task Force that recommended the creation of the Olmsted Parks Conservancy in 1989 to restore the park. In 2005, the mayor announced park expansion to complete Louisville’s transition to a City of Parks. The plan includes a paved loop around the city to unify the parks and provide a boon to cyclists. So far, The Ohio River Levee Trail and the RiverWalk have been completed. Celebrate Spring in Louisville Parks and continue the party. Though Louisville parks are great for personal recreation, they are the scene of fun events throughout the year from musical festivals to bike races to Shakespeare in the Park. Watch this blog for news of upcoming events. My team and I at Younger Group Real Estate can show you affordable homes within your budget in Butchertown, St. Matthews, The Highlands, and other great Louisville neighborhoods near the Derby. We know Louisville!
With only few days remaining until the Derby, Louisville is preparing for an influx of visitors for the big race. Though some pre-Derby events have been washed out with recent events, people are flocking into the city. They come for the race but receive a few days of good old Southern charm and modern marketing.
"What we've seen is our earliest sellout for the hotels in recent memory for the Derby," said Jim Wood, President of the Greater Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau, "so that's really encouraging for us. The demand is very, very strong this year."
Many events preceding the Derby are free or reasonably priced for the budget minded, but many who attend the Derby are prepared to leave a lot to cash (or melted plastic!) in Louisville. The city has gone all out to make visitors feel welcome. When visitors deplane at Louisville Regional Airport, they see a giant horseshoe trimmed with roses and banner of “Welcome, Race Fans,” but that is just the beginning. Louisville uses the Derby as it reason to do spring cleaning. Brightside, a nonprofit specializing in beautifying the community, attracted 500 volunteer to pre-Derby downtown cleanup on April 28. The volunteers picked up litter from Main to Broadway and First to Ninth streets and plants flower at Belevedere and Jefferson Square. The goal is for visitors to see Louisville as a clean city they might want to visit again or relocate their family or business here.
Area hotels are literally rolling out the red carpet for guests on Thursday after undertaking a massive effort to clean and paint the premises. After working closely with guests to anticipate their needs and preferences for beverage, transportation, security, dinner reservation, etc. for the weekend, many hotels are geared up to offer start treatment all weekend. They will be offered bourbon snow cones at the 21cMuseum hotel, Wild Turkey Liqueur at the Brown, a reception with roses in the room at the Galt, and similar star treatment elsewhere. Pampering is not cheap. Rates at the Sheraton, for example, which include transportation to and from the airport and the Derby plus breakfast on Friday or Saturday and brunch on Sunday, start at $2,500 per night for the package or $1,300 for a room.
According to Thomas McAdam of the Louisville Examiner, seeing the Derby itself at Churchill Downs is pricey too, not even counting the amount left at the betting window. -He quotes some prices:
A lot of revenue rides of the Derby in Louisville. With a 50% chance for heavy rains and thunderstorms for Saturday, the real action may be at the social events conducted with the Derby, whether at Churchill Downs, a hotel, or a private party. In the past, the Derby has been held in the rain, but serious storms might call for a change in plans for the race but not for the fun.
My team and I at Younger Group Real Estate can show you affordable homes within your budget in Butchertown, St. Matthews, The Highlands, and other great Louisville neighborhoods. We know Louisville!
Louisville may be soggy from all the rain, but nothing stops the Derby. As we move in the last two weeks before
the big event on May 7, the horses are practicing on a drenched Churchill Downs and other festivities are proceeding on schedule.
If you have lived in Louisville a while, you know that many Derby events are held inside and have little to do with the race itself, but aim to promote congeniality. Case in point? The 12 Days of Derby at The Bard's Town has nearly two weeks of music and comedy, topped with a special drink each night. The event starts out with a comedy contest, bourbon, and cigars, moves on to more nights of entertainment with Jack Daniels, rum, gin, Bloody Mary's, etc - all culminating in mint juleps on Derby night. Nothing repeats but the fun.
Starting April 28 and running through May 6 Fest-a-ville on the Waterfront will offer an exciting lineup of concerts, a kids' inflatable playground and corn toss, lots of food, and special events like movie night, Bourbon Country, WineFest, the Volleyball Classic ,and of course, the U.S. Bank Great Balloon Glimmer. Weather permitting, the balloon send off that day will kick off a weekend of balloon events and the Fest-a-ville itself. Although the 28th is supposed to be windy, we are expecting a few days' reprieve from the rain from Thursday though Sunday, when there is a 50% chance of scattered thunderstorms. This should make for a few good days of balloon events, food, and Louisville-style fun.
No Louisville event is complete without food, so the Mega-Chow Wagon will provide an array of American, Greek, Italian, and Mexican food including BBQ pulled pork, brisket with Derby sauce, ribeye sandwiches, gyros, kabobs, Italian meatball subs, fajitas.etc. You can finish off the meal with funnel cakes, ice cream, fried candy bars, or strawberry shortcake and wash it all down with soda, beer, or frozen drinks.
Not surprisingly, Kentucky bourbon will take center stage at the event, with different distilleries featured over the course of the event and drink specials available from 4-6 each day in a barrel-shaped tent open from 3 pm through closing. The line up is
Friday, April 29: Jim Beam Black Wednesday, May 4: Maker's Mark Distillery
Thursday, May 5: Knob Creek Friday, May 6: Jim Beam
On Saturday, April 30, before Fest-a-ville starts for the day, over 13,000 runners will complete a 13.1 mile mini marathon, while over 2,000 will run the full course of 26.2 miles. Now in its 10th year, the race course will wind through two city parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, historic Churchill Downs, Louisville's newly designed Waterfront, the Extreme Skate Park and several eclectic neighborhoods. The race is considered one of the top 50 races by USA Track and Field and serves good course. Every year, Louisville charity benefit from sponsorships. While it is too late to sign up to run, spectators are welcome
It's hard to dampen Louisville spirit, so all the exciting Derby events will be held, rain or shine. Come out and enjoy a good time in the weeks before the big event.
My team and I at Younger Group Real Estate can show you affordable homes within your budget in Butchertown, St. Matthews, The Highlands, and other great Louisville neighborhoods. We know Louisville!
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