Oldham, Bullitt Counties Lead Louisville Home Values Improvement Through Recession

Last week I wrote a piece for InsiderLouisville.com that took a detailed look at how home values have fared for each MLS area in Louisville over the past four years. The results were that, for the most part, a home’s value in June 2013 was about the same as it was in June 2009, even after the years of the housing recession.

Louisville Home Values surrounding counties chart
These trend lines show us how home values have reacted to the housing recession and current improvement. Obviously, Louisville has not had the extreme results we hear about in the National news.

Let’s see if the same thing holds true for the counties that surround Jefferson County.

As I did before, I’m using a 12-month trailing average of the median sales price for each month. By doing this, we smooth out the trend line, and it keeps us using the same methodology every time we make these comparisons.

Putting our information into chart form now only lets us easily compare different spots along the timeline, it also puts into perspective the relative home values for each area.

For example, we see that the average homes in both Bullitt and Shelby County homes run below $150,000. While Spencer County homes are a bit higher.

It probably is not a surprise to find Oldham County homes even higher, but did you know that homes North of I71 are generally more expensive than those to the South?

And now the results!

  • Bullitt County [Area 11] – 5.8% increase
  • Spencer County [Area 19] – 1.5% increase
  • Oldham County, North of I71 [Area 20] – 2.0% increase
  • Oldham County, South of I71 [Area 21] – 10.2% increase
  • Shelby County [Area 30] – 0.4% increase

Bullitt County Home Values

If you had told me that Bullitt County homes would endure three years of the housing recession and one improving year and finally end up 5.8% higher, I would have said you were crazy.

But that’s exactly what happened as during June 2009 the trend-line value was $127,643 while in June 2013 the new value was $135,004. Very solid (and surprising) improvement.

Spencer County Home Values

Spencer County is quite rural, with far fewer homes being sold each month. Seeing the values move higher from $162,733 in June 2009 to $165,121 in June 2013, is nothing but a positive.

Oldham County Home Values

Area 20 in our MLS system represents the portion of Oldham County that lies to the North of I71. On our home values chart, it’s the most volatile of all the datasets.

This area started with a value of $233,741 in June 2009 and ended up with $238,481 after four years for a 2.0% increase. The values had been higher during 2012 but have dropped recently, against the overall trend of improvement.

Area 21 represents the portion of Oldham County that lies to the South of I71. This area was our biggest gainer with a whopping 10.2% increase for the 4-year period ending in June 2013. Outstanding!

There’s not much difference between the two portions of Oldham at this point in our chart.

Shelby County Home Values

The least amount of change took place in Shelby County where home values only realized a .2% increase. At the end of our period, the $140,946 was only $500 higher than the starting point.

Conclusion

Overall, these are positive numbers, even better than some portions of Jefferson County.

Remember, there are many factors affecting these values, and are not a direct reflection of your home but can give us a very good idea about what is happening in the marketplace.

If you’d like to know what your home is worth today, you can either hire an appraiser or talk to your trusted Realtor about completing a Competitive Market Analysis (CMA).