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.

That's exactly when newer investors should be paying attention. Nothing good comes out of the barrel in a hurry. The people who buy in the quiet seasons are the ones who get to taste it later.

So here's the challenge I've been giving people locally. Make one offer before Halloween. One. A full contract, a letter of intent, a lowball, a seller-financing offer, a "would you consider an assumption" note. I don't care which. Just get one line in the water.

How I'd go about it right now, in pretty much any market:

1. Find the tired sellers. Filter the MLS (or have your agent do it) for homes that have been sitting more than 90 days and have already cut their price. Last week I counted 84 of those under $200K in Jefferson County alone. That's not a list of bad houses. It's a list of people who are ready to talk.

2. Run the numbers before you fall in love. Know your ARV (after repair value), your rehab budget and your max offer before you send anything.

3. Send letters of intent. An LOI is a short, non-binding, one-page outline of price and terms. It lets you plant seeds with a lot of sellers without writing a full contract on every house.

4. Ask about the loan, not just the price. FHA and VA loans are generally assumable with the lender's approval. When the bank's rate is over 7% and the seller's is 3%, that can be worth more than the countertops.

5. If you're buying to live in it, ask for a rate buydown instead of a price cut. That's where the seller pays money up front to lower your interest rate. It changes the monthly payment more than knocking a few thousand off the price does.

6. Look at small multifamily. Last week there were 53 two-to-four unit buildings for sale in Jefferson County under $300,000, more supply than we've had in years. If a seller has a balloon payment coming, that conversation starts now, not in March.

What hasn't changed: price it right and a house here still goes under contract in under a month at about 98% of list. So the deals aren't everywhere. They're in the listings that guessed high on day one and are still sitting.

The people who come out of a slow season with a deal are the ones who kept making offers while everyone else waited for permission.

So who's in? If you've been watching from the porch, what's the one thing stopping you from sending an offer this month?