Is Louisville Real Estate Up or Down?

Family in front of their new construction Louisville home

Is Louisville real estate up or down? It really depends on who you ask.

Housing news still dominates a large portion of our nation’s economic mindset. On Wednesday, Reuters writes New home sales hit record low, prices tumble.

The Commerce Department said on Wednesday sales of newly built single-family homes dropped 11.2 percent to an annual rate of 309,000 units, the lowest level since records started in 1963, from 348,000 units in December.

Let’s be clear, this statistic is talking about new construction, not sales of existing homes. News isn’t that bleak here in Louisville. Not according to the Courier-Journal who published Louisville Realtors continue sales gains in January this week.

Members of the Greater Louisville Association of Realtors sold 702 houses and condos in January, a 33 percent increase from a year earlier.

It marks the group’s seventh-straight month of double-digit percentage gains from a year earlier.

Color me confused because the very next paragraph states:

With only 529 sales, January 2009 was the slowest month in at least five years, said Lisa Stephenson, executive vice president of the Realtors group.

That seems to contradict the opening paragraphs. When in doubt, I look at the data itself.

Louisville KY Home Sales: January 2009
Number of Houses Sold This Month – 529
Average Selling Price This Month – $160,018

Louisville KY Home Sales: January 2010
Number of Houses Sold This Month – 702
Average Selling Price This Month – $155,995

These statistics should represent residential sales of houses, condos and townhomes in the Greater Louisville MLS.

Just what we’d guess, more sales but at lower prices. Not sure where some of these folks get their data.

Louisville Real Estate Market Gets National Praise

The Louisville real estate market gets a compliment in the San Francisco newspaper with this snippet.

Other cities which Bay Area residents, weary of the local housing market bubble, might consider relocating to include: Columbus, Ohio, whose suburbs are job-rich and where 87% of middle-income families can afford a home; Louisville, Ky. where foreclosure rates are very low and there is a stable housing market; Houston, Texas where the energy sector has kept jobs going; and Indianapolis, Minneapolis and St. Louis which made the ranking in spite of middling home-price forecasts because housing in these locations is affordable.

Even better is Louisville ranking #2 in Forbes’ Top Ten Best Housing Markets Across America.