Real Estate Information Archive

For 20 years my mother and father-in-law lived in a suburb of Orlando Florida. They had a great home but last year they decided to sell and move here (Louisville Kentucky). Boy did they pick the wrong time to try and sell. The showings were sporadic the feedback pointed to clutter and the age of the kitchen.

The 20 year old kitchen appliances were a real turn off to perspective buyers.
As a realtor in Louisville Kentucky I tried to help my in-laws sell their home with some staging suggestions that could help you as well. Like many sellers, my in-laws can’t understand why a buyer can’t see past the clutter. It’s a fair question but the answer is the clutter distracts buyers from seeing the room and space. I had my in-laws shoot pictures of their home and then send them to me. You can see the clutter and my suggestions with arrows to remove the items. It’s a tough tradeoff for any seller, of course you have to live in the house, yet you’re being asked to put your life on hold while strangers walk through the house.
My in-laws followed some of my advice (this was the second round of pictures). Pillows, books pictures of the family all distracted a buyers’ eye. My in-laws accept removed most of the items and also bought new stainless steel appliances. The condo sold and my in-laws are now happy in their new Ball home in the Louisville area. If my in-laws could do it with a condo in Florida, you can too! Follow your realtors’ advice and de-clutter. Keep a positive outlook, the interest rates and coming down and with any luck, 2008 will see home sales on the rise!
Bob Sokoler is an agent and co-owner of The Medley-Sokoler Team ranked 7th among more than 4,200 realtors in the Louisville area and as one of the top 4 RE/MAX teams in Kentucky and Tennessee for 2007. Now also selling homes in Southern Indiana. There’s a reason we’re one of the top 10 teams in the region. Service, Caring Commitment and Advanced Technology. Oh, by the way, we’re never too busy for your referrals!

Louisville Real Estate News

Why the added days? Simple, there were more homes on the market . Of course that's because home sales have been slower over the past 6 months.

More good news comes from the Mortgage industry. Interest rates which are below 6% with some lenders should spur home sales as we begin 2007.

One final sign of the recovering market, call volume. Our Medley-Sokoler Team has seen a marked increase in the number of people calling in to see homes. Sure that’s nothing scientific, but it’s a trend we monitor.

By Bob Sokoler

(www.bobsokoler.com)

The bubble may have burst in the East, West and South putting home sales into a tailspin, but here in Louisville the housing market is in much better shape. To many experts in the Real Estate industry higher interest rates and higher gas prices are partially responsible for the national bursting of the bubble. The downward spiral accelerated as the news media, hungry for headlines, went into a feeding frenzy when word came that housing starts and mortgage applications had slowed.

The media stories scared buyers, the same media stories scared investors and home owners who had reaped the rewards of record double digit home appreciation. Lets face it on paper many of the investors had become rich. In Florida for example what was a 100,000 dollar condo in 2004 was now worth 400,000 dollars in 2006. I personally know a guy who went to Miami and bought several condos in a building that was in pre-construction and sold those condos 6 months later (and a year before the building opened)  for massive profits.

So it stands to reason that anyone owning property in the bubble was frightened by the media reports. Home owners and investors tried selling their property but the media had done its job. Word was out that the bubble had burst, property continues to sit on the market at bloated prices. Take Phoenix Arizona as an example, California investors had targeted the city as the next hot spot. The bubble inflated until the first signs of the costal burst. This summer some 45 thousand homes sat on the market dumped by investors trying to salvage what they could of their paper profits.

Because of the national reports Louisville home sales slowed. (Visit the Louisville market at www.weselllouisville.com) Many local home owners didn’t understand that Louisville’s steady 3% appreciation paled when compared to the costal double digit appreciation. The fact they we were never in a bubble has helped us start to recover from a national home sales slowdown.

Home sales in the Louisville market topped 1541, that’s 39 more homes sold than last month. But the Medley-Sokoler team believes that because of the fallout from national publicity about the bubble bursting and slightly higher interest rates (when compared to a year ago), home sales fell short of the last years 1604 for the Month of August.

The number of homes going under contract last month hit 1483 when compared to July’s 1450 homes.

Without question it's a buyers market. Without question it's a buyers market and deals can be found. There are almost 10 thousand homes on the market right now, 3 thousand more than last year at the same time.

I love technology, I always have! I’ve reported on and written countless articles on the latest trends in technology for several Newspapers and Television Stations. Last night a friend of my daughters asked me to add Windows XP to her new Intel Mac Book. I was apprehensive at first. I had read about the process but I remember adding XP to my older iMac, Ouch, booting up through the Mac OS to get to the emulator slowed down XP to a crawl. But, surprisingly I have to admit the process was a lot simpler now that Apple has released its Beta version of Boot Camp ! The process was faster than I expected and could have been even faster if Apple’s download of Boot Camp was faster and I had printed Apple’s directions (I think an outline of the installation directions is a must for first time installers).

A couple of key errors I made that you should make note of include remembering to burn the drivers on the CDR, realizing where the copy of Boot Camp installs to on a Mac (application/accessories folder) and buying a full version of XP (not an upgrade version).

I do think I found a problem once I had partitioned the drive using Boot Camp and starting the XP install process (remember to only install to drive “c”). Early on during the install process the Mac crashed, and rebooted to the Mac side of the drive. Either I missed something in the directions or someone forgot mention that installing XP to the “C” drive should only be done after rebooting the computer to the Windows side of the drive once Boot Camp has partitioned it (remember to hold the option key at start up).

I’m so impressed with the process I’m considering buying a Mac Book in the future. The problem is right now I’m in search of a the best Tablet PC for my Real Estate business www.weselllouisville.com, www.bobsokoler.com, www.welistlouisville.com. All this work with the Mac Book leads me to a question for Apple, hey folks any plans for a Tablet PC in the near future?

What happened? A couple of articles in national publications touting Louisville as the new hot spot for real estate and the floodgates have opened. Inquires are coming in from all across the U.S. and Europe. In case you missed it, Louisville was picked as the best place in the country to live. Housing costs were sited as one of the reasons for the nod. For years while the east and west coasts were experiencing double digit inflection, Louisville has been chugging away at 3 percent yearly appreciation. That has kept housing costs down. One national report showed Louisville at least 30% below the national average. That will most likely change this year and next. We’re seeing an increase in the number of people considering moving to Louisville. Stay tuned, we’ll keep you up to date on the boom here in Louisville.