The Hogue Group

I really have a beautiful home to show this Sunday. the property is listed by The Lynn Thomas Team out of my office and is located at 1902 Warrington Way, just off of Brownsboro Road. The property backs up to an open field and has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. It is a one floor ranch with over 1300 square feet of finished basement and lots of storage. The laundry is in the basement and it appears the last time a sump pump kicked on was back aroun 1997 when we had the real bad storms that hit Louisville and flooded lots of areas throughout the Metro area.

I had lots of time on this one even with a holiday thrown in, so I visited 40 home in the neighborhood and gave out flyers about the house to them and had 2 that said they had friends that wanted to move into the area and another person who said they were renting but loved the area. Everyone was very nice and easy to talk to so I believe that Sunday will be a very goo day for the showing.

More on that when the weekend is through.

Thanksgiving was wonderful with family coming in from Lexington and Nicholasville. We got to see the grandbaby and all left full and ready for the next adventure Christmas. Thank goodness that will be at my daughters house.

Last Friday I went to the GLAR Office for orientation from 9 to 1. There were several things we learned during that session. First, since the beginning of 2008 there hae been over 10,000 homes sold in this market. That is down 10% from the previous year. Unlike some of the news reports we have been hearing lately, the market for homes in Kentucky is not bad. People are still getting loans, homes are still being built and the overall economy is in good shape. The example I would give would be if you had purchased a home on the first day of the year at 100k, that home would now have a value of 97k You might think that is bad but property does fluctuate all of the time due to location, local economy, and dollar/land valuation. Looking at property with my father-in-law in Key West really shows the difference of how property values are changing and how Kentucky property has not had that major bloat of unrealistic values as we have seen in Florida, California, and Nevada. My father-in-law is looking at homes there that were on the market for double the price he is offering now and there is a possibility that the pricing may go down again, depending on the local economy. What I am saying is that this is a good time to buy or sell property in Kentucky because the property values are not out of whack like they are in other areas. Having a real estate agent who follows the market and constantly updates the market information about homes and pricing is a very valuable tool to have with you. Hire a real estate agent professional who can help you with your next real estate transaction, you won’t go wrong.

This past weekend I had a showing for another agent’s listing and sat in an open house on Sunday. The showing was ok but the open house turned out nice and I had one person who is just starting to look. I sent her a note afterwards and will follow up with her at the end of the week.

More later got to go to class.

So I am off and running with my Real Estate Business. I started looking around the neighborhood and found that we have lots of wonderful properties in the area. With the economy on a downturn currently, properties are a little slower to move and this causes some anxiety with sellers and buyers. What I am seeing now is market prices in Louisville and the surrounding area are down 10 to 15% off of the market of 7 months ago.

Look for innovative ways to market your house to others. I just saw that one person even took the chance of selling raffle tickets for his house in order to stop a foreclosure process. I don’t suggest this one but I do have ideas on how you might want to make your house stand out over others for the sale, and get the highest price possible for this kind of market.

I am also seeing lots of potential investor properties coming on the market that could be fixed up with a little elbow grease and a few thousand dollars to be used for rental property.

Not sure it is the time to be looking for flip houses as the market is soft and is a buyers market rather than a sellers market. Friends of mine currently have 3 houses that were flips but now have turned to rental.

If I can stress one thing over all things is that ever buyer should get a pre approval on what they can borrow before they even go out and look at property. Why get your eyse set on a 450,000 piece of real estate when the bank only has 350,000 that you qualify to borrow.

Enough for now. Look for more words and hopefully some home photos coming soon.

License was sent to Keller Williams on the 12th of November. I looked up my new agent info and then after my meetings with Sunrise Technologies and the KDA, I went to GLAR to register. Now I have my supra key and am a full member of GLAR.

We are headed to WV to pick up the 750 IL that I will use in my business.

I also talked to a new company about what they are launching with our firm and will be signing up for the unlimited virtual tours once it is available.

I turned my info into KREC today and the testing center had not sent over the test results as of yet. KREC stated they normally send the info out on Wednesday or Thursday so I should be able to call to get my license number on Thursday afternoon so that I can go to GLAR to sign up for the association. Everything is coming together but man are the schedules hectic at this time and Thanksgiving is only 2 weeks away.

I am going to have Holly work on getting my packets together tonight and hopefully I can start sending out my info after Friday when I get back from WV.

On Saturday I got my results back from the state and as expected it shows that I do not have a record.

What this means is I get to go to KREC and apply for my license today and that is going to be great.

Very busy week this week. I have 3 classes today, a board meeting for SMA at 5 and 2 people coming over to possibly buy equipment from me this evening.

The rest of the week is a blur with an SMA farewell meeting on Tuesday evening cooking for the members of TJ on Wednesday night and leaving for Huntington on Friday morning to pick up my new vehicle.

Not only that but learning how to stay organized with the 443 program and getting listings and sales in the next 3 months.

Today I finished my Real Estate Associates test and PASSED it. Friday I received my fingerprints back from the FBI and they stated they were not done right so I had to do them again on the 3rd of November and send them back in. I signed with Keller Williams as my broker firm but once I went to the KREC to get my license they stated that they no longer allow you to sign an affidavit in order to go on and get your license. They must have at least a form back from the state in order for my license to be put into effect. Anyway I am now going to be taking several classes at Keller Williams to get better at listing and closing a sale and start to look at the various houses that will be going on the open house tour so I can be prepared when my info gets back from the state late next week.

I had to tell another friend to hold off if he can till I get my license so that I can list his house once I get them and I am legal to do that. That should put me to at least 2 houses if not up to 5 once I get on board and 2 people who want to buy houses that are waiting till I get my license to do so.