Most of our posts here at LouisvilleHomesBlog are directed to buyers of Louisville homes or sellers looking for real estate news and advice. This post is not. It is directed towards Realtors® who want their voice to be heard in our nation's capital. One of the big fund-raising events of 2010 will be on September 9th at Locust Creek Clubhouse. Buying a ticket will contribute the our Political Action Committee (PAC) called GLARPAC. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? It just stands for the Greater Louisville Association of Realtors Political Action Committee. Maybe this piece of news

A recent stock rally report caught my eye due to the real estate component. Keep in mind, this is a national report, not keyed specifically to the Louisville real estate market. A report on the housing market, while still showing a slowdown, was reassuring because it wasn't as bad as investors expected. The National Association of Realtors said sales of previously occupied homes fell to an annual rate of 5.37 million in June from 5.66 million a month earlier. Economists forecast the sales rate to fall to 5.18 million.

Museum Plaza from Brooklyn Digital Foundry on Vimeo. Hat tip to Branden Klayko over at Broken Sidewalk (great site) for bringing this amazing video to my mind again. I'm not sure if I've posted it before but even if I have, it's worth a second look. Here's hoping they are able to secure funding for the Museum Plaza project.

Here you see the entry into Shakes Run for Homearama 2010 Just a reminder, Homearma 2010 runs from July 10th to the 25th. So that means there are only a few days left for you to visit this great event. I recently visited Louisville's new home showcase on a hot and humid Saturday afternoon. Other than the sweltering heat, it was great fun. (At least for an avid new home junkie, like myself.) Rather than try and describe each home's great features, I thought I'd write about the current trends that I see in these new upscale homes and then cover a few of the innovations that I found i

Houses like this great ranch home in Douglass Hills are quite affordable when compared with the nation as a whole. The Forbes.com Web site confuses me. I know they're trying to have more pages, so each page can have more ads, thus more ad revenue, but as far as navigating it, I always find it frustrating. But what's not frustrating is that Forbes' analysts are high on Louisville real estate. So much so that again this year they rank our fair city quite high—4th in the country, in fact. Just last November, Francesca Levy had Louisville at #17 in her Best Bang-For-The-Buck Cities, w

Just how low can you go?Just days after I post Mortgage Rates Lowest in 40 Years we see a national story touch the same topic with Mortgage rates remain at lowest level in decades. (Think the AP is shadowing me?) The last time home loan rates were lower was the 1950s, when most mortgages lasted just 20 or 25 years. That's amazing. But here's the part I find difficult to believe. Rates could go lower and still not budge the housing market, analysts say. That's because a person without a job can't afford a home and a person worried about losing their job is unlikely to do so either.

Just a quick note to let you know there are only 10 days left for this year's Homearama. Remember to bring water and maybe a hat, it's hot out there folks!

As in life, there's good news and there's bad news. Looking at our Louisville real estate home values and number of sales, we see that 2010 is a big improvement over 2009. That's good news! But 2009 wasn't a very good year to begin with. That's bad news. Many economists today have serious concern over where our economy is heading with government spending on the rise and our deficit growing. That's bad news. So where's the counter-balancing good news? Mortgage rates! Rather than plaster row upon row of 30-year fixed mortgage rate data on this site, wouldn't you much rather look at som

See how home improvement dollars are being spent on different parts of the home. (Click to enlarge.) The fine folks at Fixr have updated their Home Improvement graphic with new numbers. I believe it's interesting to see how the highs of 2007 have been dropping even as home sales have dropped at the same time. This says that most consumers aren't very optimistic about the direction of our economy. If you're a Louisville home owner, feel free to click on our Home Improvement category for all the posts related to improving your Louisville home.

Below you'll find our eight monthly reports for the following Louisville housing markets. These charts display Louisville home sales and Louisville median home values with a trend line. Each chart relates directly to an "area" as defined by the Louisville MLS. Monthly Reports Area 2: Butchertown/Highlands/Germantown Big drop in sales as values remain steady. Area 3: Clifton/Crescent Hill/St. Matthews Nice increase for June but lost last year's bigger June so trend drops. Sales, however, big winner. Area 6: Buechel/Highview/Okolona/Fern Creek Medium drop in values but all oth

Just posted an article entitled, Counting Your Chickens and Other Old-Fashioned Wisdom, on my personal blog. I'd love for you to check it out and hear your thoughts! Have a great 4th of July weekend!