All Forum Posts by: Chuck B.

Thanks Rob, I googled but couldn’t find the form in question. Do you have a link by any chance?

Good idea! Not exactly a secret specific to Louisville, but anyway... while I'm not familiar with the entire county (which is the city), I've watched the neighborhoods inside I264 and just west of that for 15 years. We're still a small enough city that you can easily discern the path-of-progress (POP) when a neighborhood is getting "squeezed" by adjacent areas that are growing/renovating quickly. Buying at the right time in the POPs, when the neighborhoods are still rough, will give you outsized appreciation. E.g. Most newbies wouldn't consider Germantown years ago, and then everyone wanted a piece of it. That POP moved north into Shelby Park and then north again into Smoketown where houses that were recently 100K now sell for $200K+ and that story isn't done yet. (Who bought that two story on North Clay Street for 140K a few months ago and has it listed for 277K today? I wanted that property! Haha) You can see the culmination of this with the recently announced redevelopment on East Broadway around Shelby Street, which is also getting a lot of positive pressure from Paristowne just to the east of it.

I've posted my feelings about this plenty of times on BP but inside 264 I feel pretty strongly that the next POPs are the Warehouse District (east Portland) and the eastern half of the Russell neighborhood (east of 22nd street). Tough neighborhoods still, but plenty of fixer uppers and low cost plots make it ideal for scrappy individual investors looking to get started on the cheap. I placed a few bets in those over the past few years, so we'll see. 

Buying in up and coming neighborhoods, at least around here, is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Make sure your rents support the property while you wait and that you have a view that is further out than 36 months. 

Another thought - When purchasing HVACs, roofs, tree removal, siding, etc. you can very easily pay "retail" (just look for the biggest ad campaigns online) or you can save 30-50% by being your own GC and finding or going to the crews directly. Most people are not willing to do this but if you're scrappy you can pay wildly different prices for the exact same thing. 

PS. We'd like to thank "Bourbon", if you're here tonight, for all the great things you've done for our city. :)

I'll second taking a look at Louisville, KY. Tourism here and over the entire bourbon trail is growing strongly year over year. I don't follow the short term rental trends, but long term rentals are easy to get up and running with a good return. 

It does seem pretty busy around the ‘ville!

@Andrea Lauritzen - After hearing this I'll never complain about our rental/court system here again. :) That is a LOT to work around, and way too many excluded months, honestly. It will go a long ways towards killing your local rental market and leave little room for folks that need or want to rent. I think a lot of times that the lawmakers forget that not everyone wants to buy or has the means and stability to buy. Like most things in life, a balance needs to be struck that isn't too far in either direction. 

Something similar has been happening to our section 8 market here locally. I've been a Sec 8 landlord for over a decade but it just keeps getting more and more messed up and months and months behind on everything they're supposed to do. I no longer recommend sec 8 in Louisville, which is a shame, because I know it helps a lot of good folks and I was a fan for many years. 

@Andrea Lauritzen - Speaking as a native and an investor, Louisville is a great city... slow but steady appreciation and you can still find 1% deals if you look closely enough. People are extremely friendly and our foodie scene punches way above its weight.  We've long been beneficiaries of logistics/e-commerce but we're becoming a serious tourism town as well.

>>since there was a major change in our local laws - I'm curious, what did they do locally to you guys? 

Louisville is built on logistics and tourism. There’s a lot of development in both!

I self manage, but I know the owner at LREI and he’s very good people. @Clay Smith

 @Rob Bergeron is a local investor friendly/savvy agent.