Sharon Roark's Blog: Market News

A national real estate rental scam is now affecting the Lexington KY real estate market. The scam originates on Craigslist.org, a popular online classified ad site that allows people to post items for sale or rent free of charge.

The scam recently affected an agent in my office, Keller Williams Bluegrass in Lexington, KY. The agent had listed a home for sale on Craigslist, a practice that's becoming more common among web-savvy real estate agents. And while the originally posting of the home for sale was legitimate, what happened next was pure scam.

The scammer took all the information about the property -- pictures, description and location -- and listed the home as being for rent, posting his email address as the contact point. When people emailed him…

After two years of doom and gloom in the Lexington, KY housing market, recent evens in Lexington have officials hopeful that the housing market will soon begin its turn-around. Mayor Jim Newberry, for example, pitched a city budget last week that proposed a 1.5% increase in spending for the coming fiscal year, citing a 40% increase in building permits for single-family homes.

It's an optimism shared by those who follow building trends around Lexington, although it appears to have not yet spread to surrounding counties. Those in the city say the rise in permits might be an indication that sales of homes in Lexington KY could finally be turning around.
 
Permits for single-family home have increased from 135 last year to 190 in the first quarter of 2009.…

Meticulously maintained brick ranch on quiet, tree-lined street offered for sale.

3br, 2ba plus finished basement (basement currently used as 4th bedroom and home office, but would be a great family room as well!)

Tons of updates! Since 2007, home has had a new roof, new heat/air, new windows and new water heater in 2005. This home boasts a HUGE eat-in kitchen and hardwood flooring throughout all main living areas on first floor, including all 3 bedrooms. Sitting on nearly a 1/3 of an acre lot, this home features mature landscaping and is conveniently located close to everything! UK, St. Joe and just minutes from Keeneland and the airport.

Don't miss your opportunity to see this great home today. Call Sharon Roark, Keller Williams Bluegrass,…

Has the long, cold winter left you staring at the tired, boring walls of your Lexington KY home? Well, one of the easiest and most economical ways to transform a room is with a coat of paint.

So what's "in style" in the world of color this year? Here’s a nostalgic hint: tried-and-true aqua blues and butter yellows are big this year, along with opulent jewel tones and spring greens. According to trend-trackers at Home Depot, the following trends are sweeping the country this year:

Rich & Sophisticated

This trend is defined by colors that are rich and oplulent like bold reds (Glidden’s Drum Beat), glamorous golds (Behr’s Ripe Wheat) and dramatic dark hues such as velvet green and even black (Ralph Lauren’s Bone Black). This palette works well in very…

If you've been looking at real estate in Lexington KY, you've probably noticed quite a bit of inventory on the market, and you wouldn't be alone. According to recently released figures from the Lexington Bluegrass Association of Realtors, inventory in February 2009 was up 51% over February 2008, leading to 15.7 months worth of inventory on hand versus 10.4 months worth of inventory on hand in February 2008.

No doubt affected somewhat by the unusually cold and icy winter, sales prices were down, but average days on market were also down for that period as well. The average residential sales price fell from $167,755 in February 2008 to $150,389 in February 2009 for single family homes and from $182,351 to $128,618 for townhouses and condos. On the positive…

If you've been looking at real estate in Lexington KY lately, you may have noticed a phenomenon that past couple of weeks -- houses are selling! I have an adorable little house listed in Gainesway that I sold last week. The contract actually fell through but I just sold it again this week (and it looks like these buyers are going to qualify!). What was interesting, though, is that over the past couple of weeks, I've noticed a lot of activity with houses priced in the $100k - $175k range and it seems to be growing.

The agents who were calling to see my Gainesway listing kept asking, "Is this house still available?" because each one of them had been running across houses their clients wanted to see that were under contract before they could get a chance to…

According to a report issued by Realtytrac, foreclosures dropped 23.9 percent in Kentucky from December to January,  RealtyTrac is national firm based in California that specializes in tracking foreclosures. 

Kentucky's January foreclosure rate for January 2009 was still 17.3 percent above its foreclosure rate for January 2008, despite a temporary moratorium on foreclosures instituted by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for January.

Nationally, Kentucky still ranks well below average in numbers of foreclosures with one out of every 2,841 household involved in a foreclosure versus a national rate of one in every 466 households falling into foreclosure. According to the RealtyTrac report, Kentucky ranked 40th in the nation in percentage of households in…

After much debate, both the U.S. House and Senate have passed the Economic Stimulus Bill, expected to be signed soon by President Obama. The bill, which contains many provisions designed to provide Americans with various forms of tax relief, also provides an $8,000 tax credit for buyers in the form of a tax credit that does not need to be paid back (unlike the previous $7500 tax credit that acted more or less like an interest-free loan).

One significant change in the tax credit (besides reducing the proposed amount of $15,000 to $8,000) is that the credit applies only to first-time buyers, meaning buyers who have not owned a principle residence in at least 3 years. (Owning rental property is okay as long as none of those properties were your principle…