Louisville News and Info

During an unusual month that featured a slight increase in interest rates, higher than normal temperatures and heavy rainstorms the Louisville housing market continued recover.

The average sales price for a Louisville home increased $10,000 dollars in March 2012 compared to March 2011. For the most part, the reason for the increase can be directly tied to fewer short sales and foreclosures coming onto the market.

The number of Louisville homes going under contract increased by 1.8% in March over the same period in 2011. The good news continued for the Louisville Real Estate market, the number of homes going under contract also increased by the same amount over the same period of time.

It all points to a Louisville market recovery even thought interest rates increased to between 4 and 4.25 percent for a 30 year fixed loan. There are some mortgages still available below 4 percent but they are becoming hard to find.

The market has heated up.. You may not have heard about it you because the media hasn’t gotten wind of the story.  We know for a fact that underwriters at banks around the country were inundated with loans at the end of March. Approvals were delayed and closings that were supposed to occur in March were pushed to April.

In a month typically reserved for shoveling show and chipping at ice, Louisville home sellers are seeing their own small landslide of Home Sales. Bolstered by low interest rates and a lower than normal Louisville Housing Inventory (7578 as of this post), homes priced to sell are doing just that, Selling!

Homes going under contract are up more than 16 percent over February 2011. The number of homes that actually closed was up over 10 percent over the same period.

The numbers continue to point to a recovering housing market. Other good news for home sellers is the average selling price was up almost $5,000 and the Median sales price increased $7,000.

The only down side to the statistics is the number of days homes are spending on the market. DOM increased 15 percent (from 85 to 98 days), which could be an indication the flood of foreclosures coming onto the market is at last slowing down.  One theory is that as foreclosures slow down, so do investor purchases. With that portion of the market slowed the average DOM increases.

For buyers sitting on the fence waiting for a sign the housing slump is over the numbers tell the story. The phones in our Medley Sokoler Team offices continue to ring. Internet activity has almost doubled what we saw last year at this time. In the past 2 weeks, 3 of homes we just listed have already sold. Our office expansion is just about completed. We’ve doubled the size of our offices and our team continues to exceed expectations. 

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Yea, Yea, Yea you may say it’s too early to tell if the housing market has really recovered. I’ll put my neck on the line out right now and tell you the worst of the home sale slump is behind us. Unless there’s a major shift in consumer interest in homes because of some future unknown event Louisville home sales in 2012 are back on track for much of our area. Here’s why: Home sales for January 2012 are up 12.5% over a year ago. The number of homes going under contract are up 14.2% over January of last year as well. The median home sales price remained constant at $125,000 between the same 2 months. The number of homes on the market as of February 1, 2012 as of this writing was 7,550. That’s one of the lowest numbers in years. Additionally we are watching buyer activity online reaching new records. Specifically we’re seeing more people return to home sale websites than ever before. Our phones are ringing off the hook and we sold 18 homes in January a month that in past years averaged 6-8 homes sold. We finished 2011 far ahead of what we had anticipated selling 130 homes and making us the number 1 full service realtor in Louisville for total volume. We re so busy we’ve added 4 agents to our team to handle the requests for showings of our homes.Add everything up and the forecast for Louisville Home Sales in 2012 is good. If you’re a buyer now is the time to contact us to target your search and get out with us to see homes. For Sellers, it’s time to call to set an appointment with us to review a CMA, stage your home and get it listed. For more information about Louisville Real Estate or to work with the hardest working Real Estate Team in Louisville Kentucky “The Medley Sokoler Team” head to http://www.WeSellLouisville.com or call Bob...

I’m at my 1^st international Cyberstars MasterMind and thrilled to be a member, While here I met Stefan Swanepoel who is the author of “Surviving Your Serengeti”  or as I call it “Surviving The Serengeti”. It’s a great concept, identify who you are as an animal and learn what your wife, husband friends and business associates are so you can interact with them and understand them on their level.  The concept is not new, what is new is the comparison to animals in the Serengeti. It’s a process that allows you to easily identify personality traits. Watch the interview and visit www.whatanimalami.com to determine your animal type.  Then visit http://www.serengetibook.com/your-safari/what-animal-am-i/ to see what the type of animal means. For more information about the concept, about the book or to have Stefan speak at your event (he’s a great speaker) head to  www.serengetibook.com.

For more information about Louisville Real Estate or to work with the hardest working Real Estate Team in Louisville Kentucky “The Medley Sokoler Team” head to http://www.WeSellLouisville.com or call Bob Sokoler (502) 376-5483

Louisville Realtor Bob Sokoler speaks at the Optimist Club of Louisville

Bob Sokoler onthe air at 970 Wgtk with Dan Cassin

Despite a very slight increase in interest rates, the number of homes going under contract in December 2011 was up some 15 percent when compared to December 2010. The number of homes sold was up about 1.5 percent. December is notoriously slow for home sales so even a small increase is a positive sign as we head into 2012.

The outlook for this New Year seams very positive. Interest rates look as if they will stay in the high 3 or low 4 %. The price of homes continues at a 4 plus year low. The median sales price of homes sold in the Louisville area (the price that lies in the middle of the list of prices of homes sold) was down almost 10 percent from a year ago.
 

We may have seen home prices bottom out in 2011. Over the next 6 months we’ll be tracking the median and average home sale prices. There appears to be pent-up buyer demand from people who have sat on the fence waiting to buy a home. Our phones and websites have had heavy traffic with buyer questions and searches of homes.
 

Looking back at 2011, The Medley Sokoler Team actually saw a 20 percent increase in the number of homes we sold. We’re actually seeing so much buyer activity on our websites, we’re adding 4 new agents to our team. Look for a announcement later this month.

December 2011

Starting just days from now and continuing thru early March Louisville Home Sellers will be thinking about selling their Kentuckiana homes. If you're one of them don't spend the winter months thinking about it. Spend the time preparing your home. Even if you don't want to sell you'll be thank full you spent the time fixing and cleaning it up.

The peak buying time in Louisville starts in March and continues through late July and into August. So waiting for March to start preparing your house is already too late! So well before you put up the 'For Sale' sign in the front yard spend the winter doing a little spring cleaning.

1) DE-Clutter - Get rid of the things you don't want to move to the new house.

2) Pack up deer heads, favorite collections, photographs, trophies, stuffed animals.

3) Clean out the closets, basements, garages, and attics.

4) Get rid of personal pictures of you and the family. It will keep a buyers attention on the space in the house and keep them from trying to figure out if they know you.

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Thousands of people around the country are receiving phony e-mails from a company claiming to be the Better Business Bureau with notice of a written complaint (see a copy of the e-mail below with the link removed). Charlie Mattingly of the Louisville Better Business Bureau tells me “This is a malicious message that has been widely distributed in recent weeks. We've been doing our best to get the word out”!

The slime ball(s) behind this latest attack on our computers must think its funny. The letter claims a complaint has been filed from a customer of yours. When you click on the complaint link you apparently infect your computer with a worm or virus.

 I tried clicking on the link on the link with my Mac to see what happens (knowing the Mac is immune to those types of attacks). Nothing happened. But I did track the link to digitusmarketing.com. The company website claims to help companies create full scale social marketing. I’m not sure if they are behind the malicious e-mail but the results will not have a lot of people pointing their middle fingers at the company.

 If you receive an e-mail from a friend saying their e-mail had been hacked and it was sending out e-mails without permission you are probably looking at the results of this phony complaint e-mail.

 Letter I received:

Attn: Owner/Manager

Here with the Better Business Bureau notifies you that we have been sent a complaint (ID 71185521) from your customer related to their dealership with you.

Please open the COMPLAINT REPORT below to obtain the details on this matter and inform us about your position as soon as possible.

We hope to hear from you very soon.

Faithfully,...

Anyone who lives here knows Louisville has some fantastic restaurants.
Now the rest of the world may soon know about them as well. Southern
living magazine is asking its readers 'what's the tastiest town in the
South'? According to its online page, Southern Living editors and experts gathered
for a summit in their test kitchen and reduced the number of nominees to 10. Louisville
Kentucky, along with cities like Baltimore , New Orleans,  Charlottesville  and Houston made it into  that top 10 list.

According to the magazine, the voting by readers will begin
December 23. I'm not sure how they going to keep this from becoming a
popularity contest, if you can vote as many times as possible, cities like Houston,
with a larger population will have a definite advantage. If the voting is based
on merit, restaurants like Seviche, Vincenzo's and Lynn's Paradise Café could
help to put Louisville in the number one spot.

The online magazine webpage doesn't say when the results
will be made public, but as slow as the news cycle is over the next few weeks,
a story about which city in the South is the tastiest could make national news
very quickly. That will mean lots of
publicity for the winning city and the nine runner ups which naturally
could translate into more customers for all of Louisville's restaurants!

Of course as the saying goes, Louisville's a winner for just
being mentioned in the top 10 list of tastiest cities. But a win would be
another great feather in the cap of this great town!

Bob Sokoler is a former Anchor/Reporter turned ...

   “Keep it on or take it off”? Our sellers always ask that question this time of year. “ Should we take our Louisville home off the market during the holidays and cold weather months”?  Let’s face it; selling your home during the holiday season can be difficult. You need to keep the house show ready during the time you may be getting ready for a holiday party or when the kids are home from school and have made a mess.

   As Louisville Realtor ranked 5^th for volume of sales, my advice to our sellers is (unless you have no way to keep it clean) always leave the home on the market during the holiday season. Why? Because right now, even during the colder weather, there are people out there who really need to buy a piece of Louisville Real Estate. The fact that some sellers are advised to take their home off the market means a smaller inventory for those buyers to choose from there-by increasing the odds for your home to be chosen.

   The advice is especially important this year with hundreds of Ford employees moving to the Louisville area for new jobs. In fact, we were out this weekend with a Ford employees looking at homes in several areas of town. We’ve also already sold a number of Louisville homes this month to those buyers who really need a home. I bet my clients are glad they took my advice to stay on the market.

   Need to sell your home? The Medley Sokoler Team can help. We’re setting new records this year for home sales. See what makes us different at www.WeSellLouisville.com or call...

Call it an early holiday present for some Louisville Home Sellers. The number of homes going under contract in November 2011 compared to one year ago was up a whopping 24.47 percent.  Similarly the number of homes actually closed and sold was up 12.69 percent from November 2010.

 The home sale numbers are a good sign that the Louisville housing recovery may be here to stay. There was a disturbing trend in the numbers, the average selling price of a home was down from $173,766 last year to $156,903 in November 2011. Homes are also on the market on average several days longer from 82 to 86 days. The reasons for the decrease of the average and increase of days on market can be attributed to one or several items:

 1)   More short sale and foreclosures are on the market and selling.

2)   More first time homebuyers are back in the home buying market.

3)   Homes sellers have dropped prices to attract buyers.

 Whatever the reason the overall impact is important to the housing recovery. More home sales will clear inventory. The shadow inventory (homes that are in foreclosure or should be in foreclosure but are still lived in by owners who are not making mortgage payments) will start to shrink. Home prices will begin to rise. 

 With interest rates continuing to hover in the area of 4%, the stock market seeing a surge and increase in Louisville Real Estate sales, the worst may be behind us. With a presidential election ahead, you would think the recovery was orchestrated. I really don’t care why, too many people are suffering. A full recovery will be a welcome relief to Americans!

Bob Sokoler is a former Anchor/Reporter turned ...

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know rain in, around
and East of Louisville spells trouble for the Ohio River. Tuesday morning the
water in the Ohio was just starting to overflow its banks. It's not an unusual
problem for the Louisville area, but it can cause plenty of headaches for
anyone traveling along the banks of the Ohio. This year because of the Sherman
Minton bridge being closed down and the rerouting of traffic along I 64 and I
71, River Road is especially busy. If the water levels rise high enough, River
Road will be put out of commission.

As a Louisville realtor, I'm always concerned about the
homes along or near the Ohio River. We have one listed there now that could be
in the direct path of an angry Ohio River. The good news is that any damage is
covered by flood insurance. The bad news is up until this year the Ohio River
had not hit our listing along River Road for some 10 years. So the fact that
this gorgeous house may be hit twice in the same year is unfortunate.

Bob Sokoler is a former Anchor/Reporter turned Louisville
Realtor 7 years ago, and co-owner of The Medley Sokoler Team in
Louisville Kentucky. You can learn more about Bob, his Team by clicking Louisville Real Estate.

Viewers of the popular TV talk show 'WAVE 3 Listens' (11am weekdays on WAVE 3) saw the reuniting of 2 old friends today. Bob Sokoler (former Co-Anchor of WHAS-TV's Louisville Tonight Live and morning host/anchor of 84 WHAS Radios'  Morning Show visited Cindi Sullivan on her WAVE 3 Listens program. Bob and Cindi worked together at 84 WHAS radio and Cindi was the subject of several stories on Louisville Tonight Live. Since leaving Broadcasting 8 years ago Bob has become one of the top Louisville Real Estate agents in Kentucky and is co-owner of The Medley Sokoler Team at RE/MAX Properties East. Bob was ranked 5th for volume in 2010 for selling Louisville  homes among more than 3,000 fellow Louisville Real Estate Agents.

It's happening all around the country and someone, somewhere needs to step in and stop it! Lending institutions and appraisers are out of control and our government is only making the problem worse!

As a realtor in Louisville Kentucky I see the problem every day but it's just got worse. We have buyers coming in from out-of-town and need to buy a home. In fact we were out with them this weekend and looked at least 10 homes. Their pick was a foreclosure that had a number of small problems but nothing that couldn't be fixed.

Naturally the realtor handling the foreclosure for the bank wasn't available by phone all weekend so there was no way to know that five other offers had already been put in on this house and that the bank that held the deed was stalling, waiting for a better offer. I won't go into the ethical or moral concerns I have with the bank playing that game other than to say it's a shame.

We made a (conventional 30 year fixed mortgage) offer on the home (with preapproval letter attached) this past Sunday at $500 over list price just in case there were other offers coming in on it. I learned Monday about the other offers (no, I did not chastise the agent or his office for not answering the phone on a Sunday but I sure would've liked to). When we found out about the other offers our buyer uped his offer by another $9500.

Today I learned the bank had finally picked a buyer who offered less money than ours, but that buyer would be paying in cash. There really is something wrong with this picture. The reason the bank went with the cash offer is because it was hassle free. Meaning the bank would not have to worry about an appraiser picking apart the sale of the home over price or condition....

New Louisville Home Sales Numbers for October 2011 show an encouraging trend. The number of homes that closed last month increased 10.7 percent over the year before. Additionally the number of Louisville homes going under contract last month increased by 11.7 percent (see raw data below). On the negative side of this month's report, the number of days a Louisville Home sat on the market in Louisville increased 6.6 % from  90 days on average in October 2010 to 96 days in 2011. Most importantly for Louisville home owners the average price of a Louisville home slipped almost 4% between October 2010 and October 2011.

The increase in the number of homes being sold is really due to 3 factors.

1) There were fewer homes sold towards the end of 2010 because many home buyers had already purchased a home thanks to the first-time home buyer tax credit during the first quarter of 2010.

2) New Ford employees moving into the area have started to purchase homes.  Granted some of those employees will have to wait to sell the home they currently own in the city they're transferring from. But there are some employees who will either rent their old home and buy here or have already sold their home.

3) The final factor is the most important one.  Louisville Home sale prices have bottomed out, and buyers are starting to come back into the market.

In October 2011 our Medley Sokoler Team hit a new sales record. Normally we look to sell anywhere between six and eight homes in October. This year we put a record 20 homes under contract. We continue to list and sell homes and were looking for...

I’ve been underground the past few days trying to absorb the Apple changes from OS to iPods to Phones. I’m afraid I’m still learning, but one thing is for sure, any fears that the new Apple iPhone 4s would be a disappointment are gone. Apple hit a grand slam home run with this new phone.

Yes there were problems upgrading to the new software for many of us. But that was because of a major overload on apple servers. I pre-ordered my phone last week and sure enough watched it ship from China on Monday with UPS and make is way across the world during the week. Friday at about 10:15 am in walks our UPS guy with the phone. What a time saver over standing in line waiting to buy a phone.

Activation was a bit of a challenge. It took a number of tries to activate it. My office manager tried for the better part of a day to activate her phone, a call to Apple and she was told there was a 5-hour backlog of people trying to activate their phones. She finally got it done about 4pm on Friday

As a Louisville Realtor “Siri” gives me the ability to dictate e-mails, Text messages, and a reminder! If I need to remind myself to call a client I simply tell “Siri” to remind me to do it. She instantly adds the entry into the new reminder App! Add to that a new 8-megapixel-rear camera, 1080p video and faster processor and you have a big win for Apple.

iCloud takes a little setting up and I’m still working on getting it installed on all my computers (both mac and pc). But it will become a must have option for most of us within a year or two.

The new IOS 5, which will also work with iPhone 4’s, includes...

By Bob Sokoler, www.weselllouisville.com

Wondering if the Apple 4s iPhone laid an egg? If pre-orders are any indication the answer is a resounding NO! Pre-Orders of the Apple 4s iphone began online at midnight October 7, 2011 Pacific time.  By morning the apple website had slowed to a crawl. By mid afternoon part of the order site was down. A quick call to apple (when we were able to get through) assured us they were working on the problem.

For The Medley Sokoler Team, as Louisville Real Estate Agents, pre-ordering the iphone 4s and having it shipped to our office will save us tons of time. I’ve spent many, many hours online waiting on lines outside my local apple store in Louisville waiting to get iphones and ipads.

 The “Siri” component of the iphone 4s and faster processor alone is more than enough to make the cost worthwhile. Being able to dictate text messages, e-mails and more while driving is a slam-dunk. I’ll have 3 iphones ordered by tonight for myself, my wife and office manager (if the site comes back up).

 Unfortunately todays problems with the Apple website (at least for me) included limiting orders to 1 at a time and not being able to change shipping address to my office (apple will require a signature for delivery).

 So was the slowdown and crash or the Apple order website a publicity stunt to make us think there’s an overwhelming demand for the 4s? I don’t think so. We’ll all know when Apple announces the pre-order numbers.   

Bob Sokoler is a former Anchor/Reporter turned ...

Ford employees transferring to Louisville may be playing a small part in keeping Louisville homes sales moving upward! The number of Louisville Homes going under contract in September 2011 was up 4.8% over September 2010. Additionally the number of homes that sold and closed during the same period was up 15%.

On the surface those numbers are encouraging, but remember last year at this time we were still suffering from the tax credit whiplash. Many people who were going to buy during the 2^nd and 3^rd quarter of 2010 jumped in the housing market early to take advantage of the tax credits.

The point is it’s not terribly difficult to beat last year’s home sale numbers. Still the influx of Ford employees could help keep Louisville area home sales moving in a positive direction. Many of those employees are looking for homes in the $150,000-$250,000 price range with some acreage.

But almost all want deals because they are coming from towns where they’re selling their homes for less than appraised values expecting to make up their loss on this end. The homes they will buy will be perceived as the best values in the area.

The same can be said about all buyers moving to Louisville from other towns. If you’re a seller you need to have your home looking near perfect, staged properly, de-cluttered, priced at the lower 1/3 of the comparable homes in your area. Any deviation from that formula and you’ll sit on the market.

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Despite record temperatures and fear of a faltering economy, Louisville Homes going under contract for the month of July 2011 actually increased almost 11 percent from the year before (see data below). The numbers may be artificially low for July of 2010 because many homebuyers had purchased a home earlier in the year thanks to federal tax incentives. Still the trend from year to year shows some positive signs. For example the July 2011 homes going under contract numbers are only off 2.5 percent from July 2009. Better yet 2011was actually up 20 percent from 2008. You can make the argument that these are the bad years, recession, foreclosures, short sales and bank bailouts. But The past 3 years are actually the new normal. The good old days are gone, we can only hope for their return. So imagine my surprise tonight when I read a fellow realtors’ blog explaining to his clients that home prices are off 15% over the past 2 years. Maybe in select sections of Louisville, but according to the new Greater Louisville Association of Realtors data released today, July 2010-2011 median home prices remained the same. Additionally the average sales price of homes increased almost $3000. The numbers are not all good! The number of homes that closed was actually down 5 percent from July 2010-2011. That may be a sign of a bigger problem. We’re seeing a disturbing trend with appraisers. Appraisals are coming in low in some areas of town. That’s a concern because even if a home sells for a decent price, an appraiser may feel the property is not worth the value of the contract. We’ve had it happen to us 6 times in the past year. I’ve had to challenge the appraisal each time and I’ve won 5 out of the 6 times. So to all my fellow realtors here’s the...