Back in July we posted about the First-time Homebuyer Gets Tax Credit Relief that was signed into law by President Bush. This was great news for home buyers. Then, early in 2009, the new administration made the following adjustments. FEATURE H.R. 3221 - Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 REVISED – Effective for Purchases on or after January 1, 2009 and Before December 1, 2009 Amount of Credit Ten percent of cost of home, not to exceed $7500 Maximum credit amount increased to $8000 Eligible Property Any single-family residence (including condos, co-ops) t

This article was written expressly for LouisvilleHomesBlog.com by Mortgage Loan Place so that you can be better informed in all of your housing decisions here in Louisville, Kentucky. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is a government agency that exists to help low income families and first time home owners achieve the American Dream of owning a home. The FHA offers direct mortgage loans or insures (guarantees payment to lenders) loans. The FHA costs the tax payers nothing; it operates from the mortgage insurance payments made by the homeowners. When the FHA guarantees a loan, tra

Here in Louisville KY, our local newspaper is the Courier-Journal. They recently wrote a piece entitled, Some home assessments are dropping, and that's completely accurate! Some are dropping, but given that home values dropped last year -2.8%, shouldn't all assessments be lower? The reason I post this is not to depress you (there's enough negative on the evening news) but to educate you that a home's assessment is not a true indicator of your homes value. For the differences between assessment, appraisal and CMA, please visit my personal glossary page. A good Realtor will perform a manu

I posted Are Replacement Windows a Wise Home Improvement? last month with the chart you see below. Today I thought, why not include the whole story for you? So here is a link to the official 2008 Cost vs. Value Report: Still Many Happy Returns for Home Rehabs. If you want to know how different home improvement projects affect the value of your home, this stuff is information gold! Make sure you check out the whole article but I wanted to include here the National Association of Realtor's Top 10 Project Paybacks: 1. Upscale fiber cement siding (86.7%) 2. Midrange wood deck (81.8%) 3

Numbers still moving up in most areas for number of sales over last month. Pricing also increasing, if only marginally. If you haven't read Louisville Kentucky Real Estate Review of 2008, I'd love to hear your feedback. Like always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. March 2009 AREA SALES AVERAGE DoM 0 Central Downtown District 5 $38,520 51 1 Downtwn/Old&WestLouisville/Shively 81 $29,609 63 2 Butchertown/Highlands/Germantwn 46 $158,500 70 3 Brownsboro/StMatthews 37 $229,008 99