Today’s track: Black Friday Rule — Flogging Molly

Quick reminder of who's writing to you. I'm Rob Bergeron, Owner–Realtor at Award-Winning Winner Realty here in Louisville. I've been doing this since 2013, with over 2,000 residential and commercial deals. Other agents hire me to list and buy their own homes. I'm the realtor's realtor. Every weekday at 5 AM I send you what I'm seeing in the market, what I'm building, and whatever's on my mind. Some days it's numbers. Some days it's a song. Usually both. This newsletter began in 2019, but was an email campaign, now we are more bonafide here at The Morning Bergeron.

Further down today, I'm catching everybody up on where the market actually is. Don't skip it.

Do you ever feel like you’re called to do something?

Like you’ve got a gift, and you’re uniquely positioned to serve with it — and if you don’t use it, it’s kind of a waste of the universe?

I was thinking about that this morning. I feel very called to do all the things I’m doing.

Every time I meet with someone, I’m just so excited. People tell me, “Rob, you’ve got all this energy. Every time I talk to you, you’ve got four or five new things going.” Thrilling things. Some of it’s work, some of it isn’t. I’ve just got a lot going on.

Today’s track takes me back. Going into my freshman year, I switched from soccer to cross country. I didn’t even like running. All my friends ran cross country, and there were some cute girls on the team I liked. So yeah — I switched.

And this was the song I ran to. My anthem. I didn’t even really get everything they were singing about. It just made me feel good.

Forget the drinking parts of the song. What I heard was: let’s believe in ourselves again. Let’s raise some hell. We can do it. We’re empowered.

Turns out that’s still the song in my head most days.

Quick confession, though. I hate running. Running sucks. It's just not fun.

What I do love is a long walk around the neighborhood with the dogs. Or taking them out to the trails. That's my speed.

But I am trying something new in 2027: sprinting. Barefoot, on grass. Short bursts, not miles. If anybody wants to meet up at the park and do it with me next year, I'm totally down. Hit reply and let me know.

People always ask how I have enough time in the day.

I have all the time in the world.

Because I’ve built really great systems that let me just be bored and think.

Here's what being bored on purpose actually looks like for me.

Classical music on. No obligations. Nothing on the calendar.

And I don't fill that space up with a bunch of frivolous stuff. Breaks are good, don't get me wrong. But if I'm called to make music, I make music. If I'm called to lift, I lift. I do all the things that are good for me.

Then at some point I get bored. Or an idea shows up while I'm in the middle of one of those things. And I just start working on it.

I love to hammock and read. Sometimes I'll only get through two paragraphs. But those two paragraphs might spark a whole new thing, because I read it and go, whoa, that's smart. I could totally do that.

Walking does it too. When I walk and talk, or just move while I'm thinking, it levels me up. I try to get some of that in every single day. It's a good mix.

The trick is I set myself up for it. Not too many phone calls. Not too many texts. Not too many meetings. I stagger things out and give myself space.

Most people never give themselves that space. They fill every gap. I leave the gap open and let things get me excited.

I had a great dinner with some friends and clients of mine at their beautiful new place in Jeffersontown (J-Town) — one of a kind. We talked about being empowered. About how capable we all are right now.

I feel that way. And I love working with people and making them feel that same way.

That’s why I’ve been building out Winner Services — ways for people to earn money whether they have a real estate license or not. If you lose your job, you can reach out to me and I’ll be like, yo, here are 25 different ways to make money. Find the one that resonates with you and run with it.

I teach my realtors to earn outside of just closings, too. Get your mortgage license. Fill rentals. Recruit agents. Work leads. Help investors do a 1031 exchange — a section of the tax code that lets you sell an investment property and roll the money into another one without paying the tax yet — into oil and gas. There are tons of ways to earn, and they stack.

Okay. Catch-up time. Whether you're brand new or you've been here for years, here's where things actually stand, starting at home.

Louisville houses. These are Jefferson County single-family homes from our local MLS (the Multiple Listing Service, the database agents use to list homes), September 2026 compared to September 2025:

So prices are still up. But buyers have more to pick from and they're taking their time. That's leverage for buyers, and a wake-up call for any seller still pricing like it's 2021.

Louisville commercial, starting with 2 to 4 unit buildings (duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes):

If you've wanted to buy a small apartment building, buyers haven't had this much negotiating power in years. If you own one and you're thinking about selling, you need a real plan, not just a sign in the yard.

Want to see the supply for yourself? Here's every one of them, three ways:

See one you like? Reply and I'll run the numbers with you.

Bigger commercial, from the second quarter of 2026 reports by CBRE, Matthews and MMG (big commercial research firms):

And yesterday I wrote about The Wall: $875 billion in commercial loans coming due this year. If you own commercial property with a balloon payment coming, go read that one.

Now zoom out to the whole country, because this one matters to every buyer and seller out there.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR), the big national trade group for real estate agents, tracks something called the Pending Home Sales Index. Think of it as a scoreboard for how many people signed a contract to buy a house that month. In August it came in at 71.2. That's lower than any month from 2008 to 2011. Lower than the housing crash.

Contract signings are down about 45% from the 2020 peak and about 30% below where they were before the pandemic. They peaked back when mortgage rates were around 3%. Rates are the whole story.

And sellers are feeling it. As of this morning, 43.1% of all homes for sale in the U.S. have had a price cut. That's the highest it's been all year, and it's up 70 basis points since last week. A basis point is one hundredth of a percent, so 70 basis points means that number jumped 0.7 percentage points in a single week.

And it's not just contracts. US mortgage applications, the paperwork you fill out with a lender when you want a home loan, just hit their lowest level since 1995. That's more than 30 years.

But this isn't 2008. Back then people were losing their houses and prices fell off a cliff. Today almost nobody is being forced to sell. People are sitting on 3% mortgages and they're not letting go. Buyers are stuck. Sellers are stuck. It's not a crash. It's a traffic jam.

And the way you clear a traffic jam is you open more lanes.

We've been here before. In October 1981, the average 30-year mortgage rate hit 18.63%. Eighteen percent! And homes still sold. How? About 60% of existing home sales in 1981 used creative financing, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Buyers took over the seller's loan. Sellers carried the note and let the buyer pay them monthly. That's what kept real estate, and a big part of the economy, moving.

Same tools. Different decade.

That's where Harry comes in. Harry Borders, my mentor, runs Borders & Borders, a title company that's been in his family for generations. He just got the okay from GLAR (the Greater Louisville Association of Realtors) to teach a three-hour class on loan assumptions and seller financing.

From the ground up:

Sellers in this market need to be educated on this stuff. A lot of them have no idea their low-rate loan might be one of the most valuable things they own. When sellers understand assumptions and seller financing, deals happen that wouldn't happen otherwise. That's how this market keeps churning.

And this goes for agents too. I send a lot of offers. Some are a straight cash price. A lot of them use an assumption or seller financing. And way too often the listing agent reads it and thinks I'm trying to steal their client's house.

I'm not. It's not a scam. It's just a different way to get to a yes, and sometimes it puts more money in the seller's pocket than a straight cash offer would. The more agents understand this stuff, the more deals close, and the more the whole market keeps moving.

Agents, if one of my offers lands in your inbox and it looks weird, call me. I'll walk you through it.

We teach that at Winner Realty. And tomorrow I'll walk you through what it looks like on an actual deal.

And if you want to run your own numbers, go play with our tools section. Home value estimator, seller net sheet, mortgage and DSCR (debt service coverage ratio, the loan investors use that qualifies off the property's rent instead of your paycheck) calculators, a BRRRR (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat) calculator, a 1031 exchange estimator, closing cost calculators, a Louisville neighborhood matcher, and a lot more. All free. It's more robust than BiggerPockets or anything else on the internet. There's no better tools and resource section anywhere in the country. I mean that.

Buying, selling, investing, or just trying to figure out what your house or building is worth right now? Reply to this email or call me at (502) 305-8915. Let's talk about it.

And it's not just me. I'd love to introduce you to my whole infrastructure. Hard money lenders (short-term lenders who fund flips and fast purchases). Commercial lenders. My CPA (certified public accountant). Contractors and GCs (general contractors, the people who run the whole job). Tech people. Inspectors. Photographers. Literally everyone you need.

Just hit me up. I'm here to serve. And if I don't know the answer, I know the people who do. I've been around that long, and I know that many smart people. I'm confident saying that.

And I’m going to write a book. A short one, about 50 pages, on my experience through the cancer process. How I approached it, what I think, my best practices from actually living it.

A lot of people have reached out to me with their scares, their family’s diagnosis, their own cancer. I want them to have something to hold — so they can approach it the way I have.

Because I really haven’t had the same experience as everyone else. It hasn’t been terrible. A lot of that is the great people in my life who care about me and showed up. And a lot of it is attitude.

I don’t have time to ruminate on woe is me. I’m too busy being excited about what I’m creating.

So here’s the big takeaway: pursue the things that really interest you.

If it’s real estate, I'm a huge resource. If it’s music, I want to collaborate. If it’s a weird idea you’ve been sitting on, talk to me. Maybe we work together. Maybe I just empower you, set you up with Claude, and send you on your way to dominate the market.

Back in July I told you only 2.2% of U.S. households pay for an AI (artificial intelligence) account, like Claude or ChatGPT. The newest number is 4.5%. That's a little more than double in just a few months. I’d love to help usher you into this new world!

Don't be one of the people who gets left behind. It's time to get a paid Claude account and raise some hell in whatever industry you're in. Make your life better. Give yourself more time for the people you love, more quiet, more self-reflection, and more time to build.

📊 Yesterday’s poll: If your building’s loan came due tomorrow, what would you do? Refinance and hold won it with 58%. “Sell it and carry the note” and “Don’t own a building yet — working on it” tied at 17%. Just plain selling came in dead last at 8%. Nobody wants to let go of a good building, and I get it. Just know a refinance at today’s rates might mean a smaller loan and you bringing a check to closing — so start that conversation a year out, not a month out. And to the 17% still working on it: somebody else’s balloon is your opening.

Today’s poll:

Results in tomorrow’s issue.

🏆 Every morning I screen the whole Louisville MLS and rank the five best deals and the five most ripe for a lowball, with the number I’d offer. Reply “FIVE” and I’ll send you today’s. One-to-one only — rules are rules.

With all the time in the world,
Rob Bergeron

Owner–Realtor at Award-Winning Winner Realty
Winner Realty: (502) 305-8915
Winner Realty | OffMarket.deals | Property Partner Data Company

Schedule time to discuss your goals, bottlenecks, or whatever’s on your mind — book me here.

The Morning Bergeron daily track playlist

PS: I know y’all are savvy, but I’m trying to show abbreviations these days for the new folks to learn the industry lingo. Thanks for your patience!