Located in Buckner, Heather Green is an outstanding neighborhood that is still a couple years away from completing its first phase. Custom built homes are the norm, with a variety of styles that is pleasing to the eye, not cookie cutter. Part of the award-winning Oldham County school system, homes in this neigbhorhood are sought after for both the quality of schools, larger lots and new construction appeal.

Homes in Heather Green are comparable to neigbhorhoods like Rock Springs in Northeast of Jefferson County, Shakes Run on the East edge of Jefferson and the Estates section of Briar Hill just across the Oldham County line.

Then came March.

Watching the numbers come in for the month, many of us felt like tearing up our losing tickets. But after March’s lackluster performance, we now see April coming on strong!

752 homes sold in Jefferson County during the month of April 2012, which was a 13% increase over the previous year’s tally of 664.

There are currently just 3,760 single family homes on the market in all of Jefferson County, the lowest it’s been in some time. If you’re considering the sale of your home, the pendulum is starting to swing in home seller’s favor.

This Louisville real estate market report covers the monthly home sales for the past six years in Jefferson County (Louisville, KY) and is published monthly. It can also be found under Housing Reports for Jefferson Co. Sales.

Do you have an real estate questions? Please contact Tre Pryor, REALTOR your trusted advisor in Louisville real estate.

Updating your Louisville home's front door is consistently the best home improvement project you can undertake. In years past, it even garnered more than a 100% return on investment.

When homeowners are not moving into new homes, they are updating their current homes. According to Remodeling Futures Program at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, home remodeling projects are expected to rise 5.9% in 2012. That is a number that makes the Home Depot and Lowe’s of the world quite happy.

Recently, I’ve find myself flooded with questions from past clients about which home improvement projects garner the biggest bang-for-your-buck. The industry mantra, All Real Estate Is Local, reminds us to dismiss National numbers whenever local data is available.

Let’s see which Louisville home improvement projects have the biggest return for their homeowners when compared to the National averages.

Top 5 Midrange Home Improvement Projects for Louisville

There’s a huge opportunity for Louisville homeowners who have an unfinished attic that is a candidate for true living space, as we see the local gain of 83.8% outmatch the National average by almost 11%!

The returns for the other projects are fairly similar.

Louisville loses ground on projects like Garage Door Replacement (71.9% National gain vs. 63.7% Louisville gain) and Deck Additions (70.1% National gain vs. 63.7% Louisville gain).

When looking at upscale projects, local return on investment trails the National averages on most projects. But if you are already considering any of the following projects you have the green light for “Go!”

Top 5 Upscale Home Improvement Projects for Louisville

1. Siding Replacement (fiber-cement) – Cost Recouped: 79.7%
2. Siding Replacement (foam-backed vinyl)) – Cost Recouped: 69.3%
3. Window Replacement (vinyl) – Cost Recouped: 63.0%
4. Garage Door Replacement – Cost Recouped: 62.5%
5. Window Replacement (wood) – Cost Recouped: 57.9%

Keep in mind these are the top five home improvement projects. There are many others. As you can surmise, the remaining projects all fall under the 57% return.

Looking at returns over time, all but two of the projects have lower numbers for 2011-12. Those two that beat the previous year are the Attic Bedroom (Midrange) and Garage Door Replacement (Upscale).

Rule #1 about home remodeling projects

If I share nothing else in a piece about home remodels you must hear this. Get everything in writing!

It doesn’t matter if the contractor is your best friend, your wife’s Dad or the President of the PTA, get the project thoroughly outlined and spec’d with prices and dates.

Don’t be “the guy” who ends up on one of those reality shows lamenting the horror that is your Louisville home remodel.

The other side of the story is that it presents a credible source that affirms the messages I’m communicating to my readers on LouisvilleHomesBlog.com. So for that reason, I publish the results from time to time.

The biggest take-away is that Louisville real estate trails the national trends, primarily in time and scale. We’re anywhere from 1-3 years behind what happens nationally. More importantly, when the nation falls drastically, we fall less severely. When the nation rises, we do too, but at a lower rate.

With that said, here’s the report for March 2012 from CoreLogic.

In Louisville-Jefferson County, home prices, including distressed sales, declined by 0.1 percent in March 2012 compared to March 2011 and increased by 0.3 percent* in February 2012 compared to February 2011. Excluding distressed sales, year-over-year prices declined by 0.6 percent in March 2012 compared to March 2011 and declined by 0.2 percent* in February 2012 compared to February 2011.

Kentucky, as a state, saw a drop of -0.6% in the index.

Looking for comments or questions from you. Thanks for visiting LouisvilleHomesBlog.com!

Monthly Reports: Period Ending March 2012

Area 2 was the only one not to perform better than the previous year. Home sales were close but values have been declining for all of 2012. Perhaps this is a correction for an over done upswing as The Highlands still has tons of buzz.

Strong month for Area 3 in terms of home sales. It even surpassed last year’s May, much less their April. Prices have declined here as well but it’s been very slight–almost no loss of value here.

Area 6 has been a somewhat pleasant surprised. With both Areas 4 & 5 being the hardest hit areas for home values in all of Louisville during 2011, neighboring Area 6 looks to be improving. Home sales are exactly even with this time last year at 333 homes sold.

Home values continue their long slow drop in this area but at least some are being sold. This is solid news for homeowners who’ve been trying to sell. Days on market (117) are also under the citywide average (131).

Area 8 is winning! Both sales and home values are moving higher. Sales are up 25% for the year and the trend-line has been moving upward since November, 2011.

Home prices are sliding somewhat since their high in September but sales were up in April by 22 additional homes being sold in this area.

Another healthy month for North Oldham county and Area 21. Prices are trending higher and home sales are up big! Almost an 25% increase over the previous year’s April.

Likewise, South Oldham county saw a good month in April. Prices are moving ever-so-slightly higher and we saw a strong jump in sales. Solid.

A lot of people refer to debt and mortgage in the same breath when they discuss their Louisville house mortgage. This is kind of amusing when you think about it because a mortgage is a debt with a breath of investment in it. Can it really be referred to as a debt when it is a rock solid investment opportunity as well?

Listing Your Debts

When you are making a budget and you need to list all your debts, your Louisville house mortgage gets put down as part of the debts. When it is time to list your investments it may not be added. Why? Is it purely mindset that makes us think of a mortgage as a debt?

Now Your Assets

The glass is half full or half empty in this case. You can consider your mortgage as a heavy load to bear and have to struggle to make the payments every month or you can look at it as the best investment you’ll ever make and try to make extra payments to strengthen your investment.

There’s a famous quote by Andrew Carnegie that should inspire you. “90% of all millionaires become so through owning real estate.”

“I don’t want to go into debt” is one of the common phrases you may hear from people that are still renting. Yet, they are fine putting money into low-rate savings accounts that don’t have the same ROI as the housing industry. Real estate may take a few bumps and bruises along the way, but it always comes bounces back if you wait out the storm.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that real estate is an investment. It’s not something that can be compared to a new dress put on a credit card. That dress is a debt because it will depreciate over time. Real estate is a tangible asset that generally appreciates over time and can potentially turn into big money down the road.

Is your Louisville house mortgage really a debt? It all depends on how you look at the glass—half full or half empty.

The hot news this month comes again on the business front. Back in February we saw Louisville Brings a Lot to the Table with Healthy Business Climate. Looks like we’re learning something entreprenuers already knew.

From the Kauffman Foundation comes:

Kentucky is once again being recognized as a leading state in an important economic development measure. The state tied for the eighth-highest number of new start-up companies in 2011, according to the latest annual Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity report.

This is a positive trend that we all need to help nurture. This includes letting our elected officials to reduce regulations and tax structures that go against innovation.

With the amazing start we had with January and February I want to curb my enthusiasm and say the March was merely a correction to our trending of an overall better year. With the way my phone is ringing, I would have to say that April should beat last year’s 664 homes sold.

As inventory decreases, home sellers have a greater opportunity to sell with less competition. If you’re contemplating a move, I’d love to speak with you.

This Louisville real estate market report covers the monthly home sales for the past six years in Jefferson County (Louisville, KY) and is published monthly. It can also be found under Housing Reports for Jefferson Co. Sales.

Do you have an real estate questions? Please contact Tre Pryor, REALTOR your trusted advisor in Louisville real estate.

Clifton is a tradition-rich part of Louisville with a broad range of home sizes and shapes. More than a century has past when the first homes were built here, yet we still see a homes merely a decade old filling in a space between its elder siblings. From homes under $100k that likely need some work, to elegant charmers over $300k, Clifton has them all.

This Louisville neighborhood is similar in style to The Highlands and also has some of Louisville’s best restaurants and local shops off nearby Frankfurt Avenue. Clifton has a more urban setting than both Crescent Hill and Indian Hills, located to the East.

Monthly Reports: Period Ending March 2012

After looking at the data, it appears to me that some of it was entered for the wrong period. Unfortunately, the system is reliant upon Realtors timely service and I would wager that some was misplaced. In any event, values move up but overall still trending downward. Sales in this area were down for the month compared to last year.

Bit of a dry month for Area 3 as prices were just below the trend and home sales were almost identical to the previous year. Still… it could be worse.

In the ever volatile Area 6, prices pop up and down like a jumping bean so it’s no surprise to see them bounce back up after two down months. Sales were just under last March.

Finally a strong month for this area with home values moving the trend upward after months of stead decline. Couple this with 8 straight months of beating the previous year, it appears that Area 7 might be turning the corner.

If Area 7 had a good month, Area 8 had a great month. Home values leaped to their highest levels since July 2008 while sales beat the previous month an extra 22 homes sold. Big time.

Values in this area continue their 6-month slide dropping to their lowest level since September of 2009. Sales didn’t beat last year but it was close.

The story in Area 20 fits the script, sales are up but at what cost? Sellers continue to drop their home prices to get them sold. At what point in 2012 will Sellers say, “That’s as low as we’ll go”?

HUGE sales month in Area 21. I dug deeper to see if I could find the reason behind it but the homes sold are all over the board: different neighborhoods, price ranges, ages, etc. I just looks like people are loving Oldham County! Prices hold steady despite big jump in sales.