Listen Up Louisville: Jessica Gaines - Louisville Gaines Real Estate

If you saw the Courier Journal on Sunday, May 19, you may have noticed a familiar face in the Business section: mine. I was quoted as part of an article on what is happening in Louisville real estates. For the first time in several years, we are seeing multiple bids on Louisville homes for sale.

There is no hard data on how many sales see multiple offers, but many agents in our area are seeing the same. In my own case, this has happened on four of my current 14 pending sales.

This is extremely good news for sellers –and for buyers who plan to occupy the homes.  In the past, investors got saw deals on bank-owned properties and got into bidding wars, but as I mentioned in the paper, “for regular, vanilla, Mr. Buyer and Mrs. Seller, you weren’t really seeing it past 2006 or 2007.”

Here is the deal though. Homes that bring multiple offers are in great shape and are priced right. Many buyers want homes in “move-in” condition and are willing to fight for them. Assuming that the price is right, it is my experience that will happen.

Sellers who hope to see a fast sale at a good price need to prepare the home to move. New paint, new tile, some yard work – all these things make a difference now more than ever.  As I mentioned in the paper, “in the early 2000s, it was like you put a sign in the yard and the house sells. The difference is the work that is done upfront (by sellers) now.”

Sellers are often personally invested in their home, which makes them resistant to pricing it at the appropriate market value. Homes that are priced too high linger on the market. Some people want to try to price their home at a high value in hopes they will get some buyers interested, but this is bad strategy. In this climate, where buyers know that housing is moving slowly, yet they regard the length of time on the market and the price cuts as an indication of two things:

·        There must be something wrong with the place if it has been on the market a while.

·        If the sellers have continues to lower their price, the price might be lower yet.

Neither may be true, but buyers think that way. That is why I encourage sellers to price it right in the beginning. Buyers can recognize a bargain and may bid up the price on a home that is well-priced.

Multiple offers, increasing buyer confidence, and record low mortgage prices are all working in favor of sellers who position their home to sell. Median sales prices are up 4% this past month to $133,463, while  mortgage rates on 15 and 30-years continue to drop. The 3.83 rate on 30-years loans has never been seen in the over 60 years that long-term mortgages have been offered.

As buyers snatch up homes, the market is becoming more balanced – a situation where there are about six months of  homes at all price points available. Right now, we have seven months’ worth. A particular home might not appeal to a buyer or may be out their price range, so having a supply of homes that move briskly is the best way for sellers to get fair prices and buyers to have a selection of homes they want and can afford.

If you are thinking of selling your home, the time is right. Before you get too far into the process though, give me a call for tips on what you need to do to make it sell and how to price it. If you’re a buyer, I can hook you up with just the right property. I’m Jessica Gaines of Louisville Real Estate, your home town real estate agent.

If you believe that buying local helps Louisville, you’ll want to put the Buy Local First Fair on your calendar. Held on Sunday, May 20 from 2– 6 PM at the Louisville Visual Arts Association located in the Water Tower at 3005 River Road, the fair will spotlight locally owned and operated boutiques, shops, galleries, breweries, restaurants, and businesses. You can enjoy some good Louisville food and beer, bring home some treasures made by local artists, and become more aware of services provided by entrepreneurs right here in our city. Even farmers markets will be represented at the fair, so you can enjoy raw snacks or take home a bag of local produce if you are looking for an alternative to the delicious prepared food

If you enjoy collecting T-shirts from local events, the shirt from this fair is definitely a keeper a pair of glasses, inscribed with the words “Buy Local,” are perched above a big handlebar mustache that says “Keep weird with Louisville 2012” right below the wording, of course, picks up on the motto of the Louisville Independent Business Alliance (LIBA).

Of course, there's nothing weird about buying local. Money spent in Louisville stays here, into the pockets of local employees who provide goods and services. Though any dollar spent here benefits our local economy, more of the money spent at Walmart or TGI Fridays is absorbed by the national chains. LIBA says that patronizing local ally-owned businesses leaves three times as much money right here.

Given that the emphasis of the By Local First Fair is on promoting what's available right here in Louisville, it's not surprising that one of the partners in the event is Grasshoppers Distribution. Based on that model of local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), which matches up local farmers  with local consumers who sign up to buy a box of seasonal food every week, Grasshoppers works with many farms to acquire a supply of produce, dairy products, beef, chicken, and pork to supply schools, hospitals and other institutions with local food options. The company was formed in 2005 to help family farms make a shift from tobacco production to produce and meat.

The other festival partner, the Louisville Visual Arts Association, (LVAA)  hopes to promote "synergy” between local artists, craftsmen, and locally produced food growers. LVVA will display local children’s art . Louisville is well known for its independent art scene, so the fair provides one more venue for artists to strut their stuff.

Now in its fourth year, the festival is expected to draw over 100 businesses and feature activities to entertain the whole family. You can watch an iron show competition between the chefs from Lilly’s versus the St. Charles Exchange or sample craft beers produced by local breweries - all while listening to a concert by Members of Vessel and other groups. There will an activity area for kids sponsored by PNC Bank. 

“Buy local first” is a great idea year round, but this exciting Buy It Local First fair brings it all together.  Come and enjoy! If you want or buy or sell real estate with a local hometown girl, give me a call! I’m Jessica Gaines, your Louisville real estate resource.

As I was writing my recent blog about the Great Bed Races featured as part of the Derby Festival, I got the thinking about local bedding manufacturers right in the Louisville area. Although we have our share of mattress warehouses and other national chains, we also have companies that make mattresses and other bedding nearby.

Right here in Louisville, that Giddings Bedding Company has made mattresses since 1942 when George Bernard opened the doors. Now made by the third generation of family members, the company offers regular size bedding and also special sized bedding for antique beds, which tend to be shorter. Giddings also offers Symbol Mattresses, a line of luxury foam mattresses, which are also available in standard or special sizes. These beds are similar to Tempu-pedic mattresses, which were founded in 1992 by Robert Trussel, a horse breeder from nearby Lexington.

In nearby Jeffersonville Indiana, the Bowles Mattress Company has offered quality mattresses to customers within customers within 200 miles of its factory since 1975. As a family-owned business, George and Opal goals sold mattresses directly to the public and to local furniture stores to local furniture stores. By 1981, the Bowles move their company to an old warehouse building at 1221 Street in Jeffersonville. This additional space allowed for business growth, so by 1990 the company expanded again and then added equipment to make for a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility. Bowles supplemented their line of residential mattresses with 37 types of bedding for university dorms, nursing homes, hotels, private label products, and specialty items such as waterbed replacements, round beds, truck sleepers, sofa bed couches, adjustable beds, and antique beds. They also make "Air" Digital Sleep systems, a sleep product similar to the Sleep Number bed which surrounds air pockets with foam. The company is currently managed by Billy Bowles, son of the original owners.

Strobel Technologies, also from Jeffersonville, IN, has perfected their line of Supple-Pedic mattresses, which use space spring-wire rods and fulcrums to create a system that works like a  teeter-totter to provide excellent support, and according to the owner, Mark Stroeble,  "the lowest surface pressures" of any mattress on the market today. Originally a waterbed maker, the company still makes an upper-end  soft-sided ultra-waveless waterbed mattresses with lumbar support. In an era when many manufacturers add chemicals like boric acid, arsenic, and silicon, formaldehyde to their products to meet national fireproof standards, Strobel mattresses are toxin-free.

Offering bedding accessories, Louisville Bedding Company has grown from its humble roots in 1889 to now having over a million square capacity to produce 14 million pillows and 18 million mattress pads each year in  its US and international facilities. Originally founded by Samuel Cruse as the Louisville Pillow and Mattress Company, it got current name in 1917.  In addition to pillows and mattress pads, the company’s product line include comforters, sheets, and foam pads. Louisville Bedding manufactures for chain stores under national brands like Croscill, Nautical, Beautyrest, and, Deepsleep, and private labels like Sleepsations, SensaLoft, and EcoSmart. The firm was one of the first to make sheet that fit deeper-pocket mattresses with its Expand-A-Grip line. Despite its international scope, 98% of Louisville Bedding products are made in the United States. It is the world’s largest producer of mattress pads. Over 7000 of its 1,000 employees are in Kentucky.

With so many exciting things to do in Louisville, we can get our rest on local products that would be a great addition to your new home. For information about buying and selling homes in the area contact me, Jessica Gaines, your Louisville real estate resource, today.

Loads of upgrades in this cute Cape Cod in Melbourne Heights.

Kitchen - new flooring, new counters, new island with cabinetry, new sink, new faucet, large pantry, smoothtip range, dishwasher

Master  Bedroom - New tile, fllor to ceiling windows, ceiling fan

Bathrooms - New tile, new tubs, new faucets, new mirrors

Call me today at (502) 432-1918 to see this one! 

With the Kentucky Derby running today, many Louisville citizens are occupied with watching the race or at least celebrating it with home parties and other scheduled events. Excitement for the race has been building for weeks, as the city enjoyed the Derby Festival. One of the most interesting events of the Festival was the Stock Yards Bank Great Bed Race, held on April 30, the pre-race event that features less mud and more fluff in Louisville.

Teams sponsored by area corporations piloted beds along a figure 8 track designated by cones at Yum Center. Prior to the race, the 25 five-person team decorated the beds in keeping with this year's theme, Bedtime Stories. To facilitate steering, beds can shed some of their decoration during the race, but decking out the beds as part of the fun. Betting teams are paired off to run heats. The goal is achieving the best time, but teams pace themselves to avoid crashing at the crossing point of the figure 8.  Of course, when beds crash, the crowd cheers and traffic cones go flying.

Needless to say, the beds that were raced were far cry from what's in your bedroom. Though the bed must incorporate standard full-size mattresses, they are mounted on a special four–wheeled frame, such as those made by Louisville's Knight School of Welding. The bed must be steerable, have exactly 4 wheels, and must follow all specs determined by the Kentucky Derby Festival. During the race, at least one team member must remain in the bed at all times.

The event is an actual race, with the fastest team proclaimed the winner, but beds can win as the Most Decorated, the Most Entertaining, the People's Choice, the Most Likely to Break Down, and Cone Eater. This year's winner for speed was once again Curtain Call Photo Booth, who has won the last four races, followed by West IP Communications and UAW/Ford Louisville Assembly Plant. The victors in the other categories were:

Best Decorated Bed: Bigelow Tea (Mama Teacup and Baby Teacups theme)

Most Entertaining: Rubbies Southside Grill & Bar (Snow White and Seven Dwarfs theme)

People's Choice: Rubbies Southside Grill & Bar

Most Likely to Break Down: Whole Foods Market

Cone Eater: Apple Valley Gang

As the winner, Curtain Call participated in the Pegasus Parade on May 3. The race is run for fun and charity, as money raised by the People's Choice voting is split between the Kentucky Derby Festival and local charities.

The Great Bed Race began in 1990 as "Bedlam in the Streets." First run in downtown Louisville in theater square it moved to broadband arena and ultimately Yum Center. As noted in the video, it is promoted as a “Buy Local Event.” This is good timing, given that the Buy Local First Fair is coming up on May 20^th.

For information about buying and selling homes in this neighborly area, contact me, Jessica Gaines, your Louisville real estate resource, today.

Since December, 2009, the population of Louisville has exploded exponentially with the legalization of urban beekeeping. Recently, this thriving form of urban agriculture was in the spotlight as beekeeper Lorie and Ted Jacobs and their hives were featured on KET's "Kentucky Life" show, hosted by Dave Shuffett.

The Jacobs are part-time beekeepers from Brownsboro--Zorn who have two three hives in their back yard which they use to produce honey and for Derbee City Lip Balm, which they both sell and give away. With over six years experience, they are considered local experts. They were recently called upon to capture a renegade swarm at a home near Bellarmine University. They are quick to educate their neighbors on bee behavior, which poses no danger to them.

If you have ever seen The Bee Movie with jerry Seinfeld, you may understand why beekeeping has been a passion for the Jacobs and the many other beekeepers throughout Louisville. Bees are not “pests,”  perform an important service in pollinating both flowers and food crops. Due to pesticides, disease, and even weather patterns, bees are dying off. Up to now, “gypsy” colonies of bees have aided American agriculture. Both commercial beekeepers and hobbyists have a role to play in nurturing colonies of bees.

AS Ed Oslen, a commercial beekeeper from Arbuckle, CA put it in an article in Eating Well, "About 35 percent of the food we eat—$15 billion worth of produce in the United States and $215 billion worldwide—would not exist without pollinators. Once we had thousands of native insects that provided all our pollination needs, but habitat destruction and the ever-increasing size of industrial farms have put most of our crops out of reach of wild bugs. The only way to bring pollination to these plants is to truck it in, and the honeybee is the only pollinator that will endure such a domesticated lifestyle.”

The movement fits in well with the thrust in Louisville and elsewhere to live green and eat food produced locally. (There is even a First Hive at the White House, in line with Michelle Obama’s commitment to fresh, local eating.) Locally–produced honey is a staple at farmers’ markets such as the Bardstown Market or the one in Phoenix Hill, but also is stocked at Heine Brothers on Frankfurt Avenue and Paul’s on Herr Lane. The Louisville Honey Company in Old Louisville, run by Whitney and Matt Fontaine, even sells it online.

If you are interested learning about this interesting avocation that helps the environment and offers a  good source of local honey, you can find a lot of help in Louisville to get started from organization such as the Kentuckiana Beekeepers Association,a Lousiville group that meets monthly, The Kentucky State Beekeepers Association, or the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, which has the Bluegrass Beekeeping School. Another good source of ongoing information are local blogs such as Fleur de Bee.

Something’s always buzzing in Louisville. If you are looking for a good place to find a home, call me, Jessica Gaines, from Louisville Gaines Real Estate. 

With the Kentucky Derby just a couple week away, my pups are running for their earplugs this weekend while the rest of Louisville leads for Waterfront Park to enjoy Thunder Over Louisville. Offering a spectacular airshow and fireworks display that marks the official opening of the Kentucky Derby Festival that leads up to the race, the event is the top airshows and among the top 100 events in North America. With an expected release of 52 tons of explosives, it ranks pretty high on the noise meter too, but it is an exciting show that is just one part of a fun filled weekend. For a complete schedulle of what is happening, see the Schedule at kdf.org.

The fireworks show is produced every year by Zambeli Fireworks Internationale, which attempts to exceed the wonders of the previous year’s show. Set in motion from a command center in the Galt Hotel, this year’s show will synchronize music with the the explosive burst sof light to create a 28 minute show containing 57 pieces of music. Thunder Over Louisville has come a long way from its roots in 1989 when 20,00 balloons were quicly released after a daytime ceremony.

Held at 9:30 pm, the military-themed show caps off a 7-hour air show with 90 aircraft. Since 2012 is the 100th anniversary of Marine Aviation and the 70th anniversary of World War II’s Battle of Midway. there will be over 100 miitary and civial planes in the show, including some vintage models.

Depending on the weather, over 500,000 might attend the events. Because the events attracts a lot of people, planning your visit in advance will limit your surprise to the wonders of the shows, and spare you aggravation.

Traffic may be madness, so be prepared. Some interstates and many streets will be closed and traffic rerouted. Roadwork on I-71 will continue, adding to probable traffic jams. See the Courier Journal’s list of street closings. so you can plan ahead. Louisville Metro Police will have 606 officers assigned to Thunder Security ,plus 633 for traffic enforcement.

Anticipate where you will park. If possible, to avoid some traffic tieups, park a few blocks away or take public transportation, which has been increased for the event. If you want to park close, near the Clarksville Memorial Bridge, the old Colgate plant will charge $20 for passenger cars, $10 for motorcycles, and $200-250 for RVs, Otherwise, there are about 52,000 parking spaces within a 10 blog walk of the park.

Come equipped. With rain and cool temperatures predicted, bring rain gear, extra jackets, and blankets. The event is long, so bring in lawn chair or a picnic blanket or tarp (less than 10’x10’) to make yourself comfortable. You cannot camp at the site or erect a tent. To make the veent comfortable, include some ear plugs, especially for kids.

Don’t forget your Pegasus Pin. Available for $5 having a pin will allow you the best access to festival events and make you eligible for prizes.

No pets. Louisville is usually pretty dog friendly, but for this crowded event, please leave pets at home.

Plan for meals. You can bring your own food and drink, so long as it is not in glass bottle. There will be plenty of delicious food on hand from vendors or at the sites such as Thunder Chow Wagon, West Belvedere Beer Garden and Derby Festival BoomTown, where no outside food is permitted. No grilling!

Other options. Though this event is classic Louisville, if you can’t make the show or if you kids (or you!) poop out before the fireworks, you can watch the event on WDBR TV, listen on WVEZ (106.9 FM), or follow along on Facebookor Twitter (@kdfboom). Undoubtedly, there will be plenty of videos and photos of the show t fill you in on what you missed live.

If you’ll be there, join the Thunder Twitter Team and share your tweets with the Courier-Journal. Sign up for the Thunder Twitter Team.

Even when it’s all calmed down, Louisville is still a great place to live. If you want to join the fun year round, call me, Jessica Gaines of Louisville Gaines Real Estate to buy or sell great houses throughout Jefferson, Bullitt, and Oldham County.

WELCOME TO THIS WELL-MAINTAINED BRICK RANCH IN AN ESTABLISHED NEIGHBORHOOD!  Home features NEW WINDOWS, ceiling fans, & a nice layout throughout.  Formal Living Room offers a bay window for lots of light & opens to Formal Dining Room.  Eat-in Kitchen features pantry, built-in cabinet broom closet, & stove & dishwasher to remain (refrigerator negotiable).  Kitchen opens to backyard & window at kitchen sink overlooks it.  Spacious Main Bath offers tiled tub, white vanity, & updated tile flooring.  Seller believes there is HARDWOOD UNDER CARPET IN BEDROOMS.  Master Bedroom includes HIS/HER CLOSETS & half bath.  Nicely Finished Basement features NEUTRAL CARPET & BRICK WOOD-BURNING FIREPLACE flanked with built-in bookshelves.  Finished area offers lots of space for Family Room, game room, play area, or office.  Unfinished space includes laundry & lots of storage.  Exterior offers 1.5 CAR GARAGE (built in 1996) & a private backyard.  Home is conveniently located in a desirable neighborhood that shows pride of ownership!

Washer & Dryer stay in this cute ranch, along with refrigerator and smoothtop range. Charming front porch, plus covered patio in rear.