Louisville Home Sales And Rental Listings

Introduction

Louisville is, by reputation, the northernmost Southern city in the U.S.A. ‘Ville, as The Courier-Journal would want us to refer to Louisville, was founded in 1778 and is the 17th largest city in the United States. It has Midwestern and Southern nuances and this widely shows in her buildings, culture and population. The major business district is downtown, 10 km north of the airport, while the main industrial sections are to the south and west of the airport and the predominantly residential areas are southwest, south and east of downtown. In many ways, Louisville can be divided into 3 sides: the West End, the South End and the East End with each having a distinct demographic feature (the East End has seen a boom in residential development ever since the “Great Flood of ‘37” as people avoided the low-lying parts of the city). The Louisville real estate market has been growing ever since 1995, before home sales peaked in the year 2005 where over 11, 000 homes were sold off in Jefferson County. The average price of a buy has also increased from slightly below US $140,000 in early 2006 to the present US $160,000. As of January 2012, there were 8,670 active listings in Louisville with 525 homes sold already.

History

Louisville has had a long relationship with her real estate economy. Early residents lived within the confines of forts, ostensibly for protection, within which they built cabins. By the late 1780s, the majority of these residents lived outside these forts. Industrial development and the development of steamboats led to an influx of residents and the rise of inner city estates and industrial sections and following the abolition of slave trade, the free African-American population organized itself in its own neighborhoods. The arrival of interstate highways in the mid 20th Century meant that Louisvillians could now live in the suburbs. Downtown has a flurry of skyscrapers the first of which was in 1963. As such, ‘Ville has an architectural mix of old and new- from Victorian and shotgun houses to styles from the French Renaissance, Italian Renaissance and the postmodern era. In addition, Louisville has been traditionally divided into different parts: the West End is generally Afro-American part of town; the South End is dominated by a Caucasian, working class and Southeast Asians; and the East End is associated with the middle and upper class and Eastern Europeans. The West End attracts the lowest home prices while the East End has the highest home values. The estimated median household income in 2009 for Louisville was US $120,331. Furthermore, within these parts of town are over 200 neighborhoods and home prices vary within them.

Features

The Louisville real estate market dipped from the U.S national housing recession such that from a high of 10,500 (2007), there is now an average of 8, 000 listings, a dramatic debacle. In addition, there are far many more distress sales than ever due to foreclosures- there were 2,000 foreclosure sales in 2008 that sold off at up to 27% lower in addition to the negative cumulative effect on non-foreclosure sales. Nonetheless, the Louisville homes market is on the rebound: the average home price was US $ 224,300, up 54% from January, 2012. The number of units sold in January, 2012 is 15.1% higher than the same period last year. Within different neighborhoods, the data varied, with an increase of 65% in units sold in the Prospect, Anchorage, Glenview and Lyndon neighborhoods and even numbers in Jefferson town, Fern Creek and Hikes Point. The trend, however, is that home prices are falling in an effort to increase sales. Housing units available include detached houses (at $ 149,909), townhouses or other attached units ($ 128,858), 2-unit structures ($ 143, 608), 3-to-4-unit structures ($ 155,778) , 5-or-more-unit structures ($ 132,395) and mobile homes ($ 48,144), 75% of the national averages (2009 figures). Due to this confluence of factors, that is, a huge number of home listings, numerous distress sales and cheaper home prices, now would probably be the best time to buy a home.

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