Here's something you don't hear every day. A couple near Pittsburgh are trying something, that to my knowledge, has never been tried by someone selling their home. According to the Husicks' offer, the buyer would get the money back when the couple dies. And if the buyer agrees to care for them in old age, they could also inherit their retirement home in Arizona, bringing the estate's current value to about $500,000. Surely, someone will jump on this highly aggressive marketing approach. Even if they aren't allowed by the courts, this free PR make the Husicks some smart sellers.

Propsed New Skyline of Louisville. Click to enlarge. We've been talking about it for months. But just in case you hadn't heard (Do you live in an underground bunker?) developers have broken ground on Museum Plaza. Which, if you're keeping score at home, will be Kentucky's largest ever public/private real estate project. We're talking $490 million. And that's before costs inevitably go up once the project is underway. This particular modern design is not my favorite, but I'm quite pleased that Louisville is updating their image with this bold statement of a skyscraper. It's certainly g

Media outlets spend a large majority of their time covering negative news items, while positive news often goes largely unnoticed. There seems to be a never-ending flow of negative news coming from news outlets these days; especially regarding the housing market. True, it's a tough time for sellers given all the inventory out there. But the "silver lining" is that home values continue to rise in Louisville. That's certainly good news. Like every market, corrections occur to make recent increases more realistic and reasonable. So, just because a house has dropped its asking price by $3

This article is part of a series devoted to giving pertinent, professional advice to Louisville's homebuyers and sellers. Others include:  • Top 10 Mistakes To Avoid When Selling Your Home  • Top 10 Things to Consider When Planning a Time to Sell  • Top 10 Tips for Relocating to Louisville  • Top 10 Tips for First-Time Home Buyers  • Top 10 Ways to Prepare Your Property For Sale Why It's Tough to Sell Your Own Home In a recent National Association of Realtors® survey, only 13% of all transactions were done without the help of a rea

Stratton Hammon, one of Louisville's premiere architects died in 1997. His memory is now receiving some special attention in the form of an exhibit at Louisville's Speed Art Museum. The exhibit and book fill a gap in the existing history of Louisville's marvelous array of housing stock, which runs from shotgun houses for working-class families in the California and Butchertown neighborhoods to the high-style Victorian, Beaux Arts, Renaissance Revival and Romanesque variations in Old Louisville, the Highlands, Crescent Hill and spreading to Pewee Valley. [link] History buffs and archi

Today marks the first time we're going to publish monthly home sale numbers here on Louisville Homes Blog. If there's another piece of data that you would find helpful, just drop us an email. September 2007 AREA SALES AVERAGE DoM 0 Central Downtown District 8 $207,573 183 1 Downtwn/Old&WestLouisville/Shively 82 $58,209 71 2 Butchertown/Highlands/Germantwn 80 $192,700 45 3 Brownsboro Rd/CrescentHills/StMatthews 77 $233,199 55 4 Pleasure Rdg/Valley Station 55 $95,266 60 5 Auburndale/Fairdale/Iroquois Park 83

Quick. In one word, describe Louisville's housing market? Down? Bad? Wait a minute... not so fast. Let's look at the facts of the case. Much of our perception comes from national media outlets. These are the same people who thrive on bad news like the paparazzi who practically kill themselves to get bad photos of Lindsey Lohan. All we hear is that the market is "down" but without historical data, otherwise known as perspective, how down is it really? Enter my new favorite writer at the CJ, Alex Davis. His story Sunday highlights the fact that the market in Louisville isn't down at all. I