Lexington, KY - I should preface this entire issue, which includes our annual real estate enterprise section, with this caveat: I am not a homeowner. But before you start haranguing me about what a lucrative investment owning a home can be and how I should be taking advantage of the $8,000 Federal Housing Tax Credit for first-time home buyers, all while expounding upon the finer things in life inherent in owning your very own home (like completed basements and stoves with all four working burners) - let me stop you right there Ö I know.
I know I shouldn't be paying for my landlord's mortgage, and I'm starting to realize entire bathroom or kitchen renovations are kind of hip, not in an HGTV way, but in a "wow, all your cabinets match" kind of way. I've seen the enjoyment some close friends have gotten out of owning property, and I've crunched the numbers enough to know that homeownership is within my means, in certain areas of town, at least.
My equivocal stance on being a homeowner has been cultivated through years of observation, most notably my parent's epic struggle with their water line and leach field over the course of more than a dozen years - the problem is so merciless my dad is contemplating the purchase of his own backhoe, as an investment. Another friend, not wanting to pay a roofer for fear of exorbitant prices, has had to squeeze out a tiny attic window to fix a persistent leak so many times he decided to invest in a long, sturdy ladder. Do you know how much a long, sturdy ladder costs? They are expensive.
I'm sure there is a certain amount of pride to be had properly maintaining the property you own or watching it turn into the space you've always dreamed; there's also something to be said about not having to unexpectedly fritter away an evening or weekend excavating your yard or toiling on a roof at break-neck heights. Being a renter, I can rest assured that when my bathroom ceiling starts to leak or an exotic botanical garden begins to emerge from the gutters, I can make one or two (dozen) phone calls and the problem will be fixed within the next three or four months - on the house.
In this issue, be sure to check out our neighborhood breakdown of changing real estate prices to see how your neck of the woods is fairing. A special thanks goes out to David O'Neill, the Fayette County Property Value Administrator - he crunched a lot of numbers for us, provided a valuable chart of information and also wrote an informative piece on the local real estate landscape to boot.
In a time when some of us are watching our home prices fall (not me, but I can't speak for my landlord), some of you out there are trying to squeeze a little extra income out of your investment in some creative ways. Managing editor Saraya Brewer reports on the companies that have popped up recently in the hopes of opening local homeowners' doors to the rest of the world, taking advantage of the expected influx of visitors Lexington will receive during the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. Turning your home into a vacation rental for a few weeks to host strangers is probably an foreign notion for many homeowners, but looking at the prices some people are charging per day, I know I would get over whatever apprehension I may have on the matter. In fact, I might look into buying a home just so I can try to take advantage of it.