A friend asked me whether Louisville really had a world's fair. It did, and the paperwork has a good lesson in it for anyone who buys land. It was called the Southern Exposition. It opened August 1, 1883, and ran every summer and fall through 1887. The city's Board of Trade sold stock at $25 a sh...
Here's something most people who live here don't even know. Louisville has the largest collection of Victorian mansions in the United States. Louisville also has more shotgun houses than any other city in America. Number one in both. The fanciest houses of that era and the plainest, in the same c...
Quick note up front: I'm a realtor, not a lender. This is what the data shows, not financing advice. The national picture is rough. Mortgage purchase applications are down about 60% from the pandemic peak, rates are above 7%, and a record 14% of September deals canceled before closing. Here's the...
A lesson on land and "highest and best use," using Kentucky as the example. In 1798, a Swiss winemaker named Jean-Jacques Dufour raised money for America's first commercial vineyard by selling 200 shares at $50 each in the Kentucky Gazette. Basically crowdfunding, 225 years before Kickstarter. He...
Hello After underwriting a Multifamily near East Market District(I Looking it up on a map). Recently I was in town and drove pass the subject property. Not terrible, so Now I am looking to speak with CRE brokers locally and property managers to get a better understanding of the market.
Hello, I am considering buying a condo and I'd like to underwrite the deal both as a long term and mid-term rental. I am very familar with how to price a long term rental. I feel a bit in the dark about pricing a mid-term rental. Any help on how to figure out pricing would be greatly appreciated....
Rob here, a Louisville agent who works mostly with investors. I think the novation is the most underrated tool in the toolbox, because it's the one strategy where every side gets what they actually want and nobody needs a discount. The seller gets their number. The buyer gets a clean, move-in-rea...
If you've ever talked yourself out of buying your first rental, I'd bet the fear wasn't the roof or the interest rate. It was one question: what happens if somebody stops paying and I can't get my house back? Out-of-state investors ask it. First-time landlords ask it. So here is how a nonpayment ...
Everyone's chasing off-market deals right now with driving for dollars, absentee owner lists, tax delinquent lists and postcards. That all works. But some of the best opportunities in my market are already on the MLS, and most people walk right past them. I've been tracking homes that have been l...
Nobody puts roofs on a top-ten list, but this is the thing killing more offers and repair negotiations than anything else I've seen lately. Insurance companies used to cover your roof at replacement cost value (RCV). If a storm tears it off, they pay to put a new one on. A lot of companies have s...
Hi all, Rob here, a Louisville agent who works mostly with investors. $875 billion. That's how much commercial and multifamily mortgage debt comes due in 2026, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. It's about 17 percent of all the commercial real estate debt in the country. Last year it ...
Our market here in Louisville, KY just went quiet. Active inventory is up about 40% from a year ago. Fewer houses went under contract in September than last December. Rates are the highest they've been in a long while. Buyers are taking their time, because for the first time in a while, they can....
Hi all, Rob here, a Louisville agent who works mostly with investors. I see a lot of "which market should I pick" threads, so here's my case for Louisville right now, with the numbers and the downsides. I think this market is undervalued by 20-30% relative to peer cities. We do not score well on ...
Every day, more than 150,000 people drive over the largest building in Kentucky and have no idea they did it. It's under the Watterson Expressway and about 70% of the Louisville Zoo, 75 to 100 feet down. Four million square feet, around 100 acres, seventeen miles of roads, and it stays 58 degrees...
I have been running the numbers on some deals, mostly 2-4 unit properties, and I am finding that nothing on the MLS is even coming close to cash flowing at the list price. I am sure part of it is just how the market is, but I want to check to see if the numbers I am using are right in the first p...
I pulled every single-family home in Jefferson County (Louisville, KY) by price band. What's for sale, what's under contract, and what actually sold in the 30 days ending in early October, compared to the same 30 days last year: Under $200K: 624 for sale, 139 under contract, 160 sold vs 206 last ...
Does it really matter if the wholesaler you're dealing with has experience or not? I went to my first KREIA meeting last week, with the hope of meeting a wholesaler, after having a conversation with a HML who smartened me up and made me realize that most investors get their properties from wholes...
You're in the middle of your BRRRR strategy, you've bought a property and got funding from hard money. You've rehabbed, rented the property out and you're cash flowing. Now it's time to refinance. Your hard money lender does DSCR cash out refinancing, but you also know a mortgage lender that you ...
The hardest part of a 1031 exchange usually isn't the paperwork. That's your QI's job (the qualified intermediary, the company that holds your sale money) and your CPA's. The hard part is finding replacement property you actually want before your deadlines hit. In Louisville, small multifamily ju...
Hi all, Rob here, a Louisville agent who works mostly with investors. You know the house. Three bedroom in Fern Creek, dated but clean, needs paint and carpet and a countertop. No investor will pay you a finder's fee on it, because there's no big repair job for them to make money on. And the sell...
Some houses come with a loan attached that no bank will ever write again. A 2.75% loan. A 3% loan. Sitting inside a house that's for sale right now, and the next buyer can take it over. When I ran our MLS, 26 active listings in Kentucky were flagged assumable. Out of roughly 4,500. Then I searche...
Hi all, Rob here, a Louisville agent who works mostly with investors. Two people want the same house. The seller can't drop the price. The buyer can't get the loan. Not this year. A lease option doesn't need anybody to give. It needs time, and time is the one thing both of those people have. A le...
Everybody's talking about the K-shaped economy: the top doing great while the bottom gets squeezed. You can see a version of it in Louisville housing right now. I pulled single-family sales in Jefferson County (Louisville) from our MLS for the last 90 days and compared them to what's sitting on t...
Hey everyone — I’m Cade, 22 years old and a recent Indiana University graduate. Over the next year, I’m looking to purchase my first small multifamily property in the Louisville market and house hack it by living in one unit and renting out the other. Right now, I have very little in monthly expe...
In Jefferson County, KY right now there are 153 multifamily buildings for sale. 38% have cut their price, 69% have been sitting 60+ days, and September sales closed at 90.6% of original asking. Put that next to the $875 billion in commercial loans coming due this year and you've got owners with a...