I have been looking at Zillow and there are houses in fairly good shape for $20-50~K kind of all over the city. Maybe these are very crime ridden places...

I am a Lexington resident and you can find some good deals on property.  I bought a house that was approaching foreclosure and the only crime I've experienced was not locking up my lawn mower several years ago.  I didn't have a serial number to give to the police so I chalk that one up to stupidity on my part.

There have been some people arrested in my neighborhood but overall you can find some decent properties that are good prices.

There are also a lot of different industries here so you would probably not have a difficult time finding work near Lexington.

The best part about it is you can get to wilderness very quickly if you want.

So no streets or certain "hoods" to avoid? I am not afraid of crime just don't want bullets whizzing through my walls or my house broken into on a daily basis.

Generally speaking,the northern half is less desireable than the southern part but there are spotty sections all over. I just bought a house last year low 200s  and it is 15% more on the south side than on the same floorplan (Ballhomes) on the east side near the interstate. Its definietely not like Louisville (west side) or Chicago though. Overall its a good place. 20-50K wont get much here.

Any of the numbered streets (3rd,4th...) Eddie street area is pretty bad.,

All in all, yes Lexington is an excellent place to live.  There are parts of town you definitely want to avoid living in, but that's true for any city.

I would recommend staying on the south side of Lexington when looking for houses, as the neighborhoods tend to be better.  I would stay with zip codes 40503, 40513, 40514, 40515, 40517, 40509.

Neighborhoods/areas to avoid: Anything off of Versailles Rd from downtown until you get past New Circle Rd. Anything off of Russell Cave Rd until you get past the interstate, especially the Winburn and Hollowcreek neighborhoods.  The Centre Parkway area.  Anything northeast of 3rd street out to New Circle Rd with the exception of the Transylvania University campus. The hipsters are trying to get a foothold in that area along with Jefferson St and N. Limestone but it's not quite there yet.  The area around Bryan Station Rd and Eastland Parkway.  Anything off of Georgetown St.

I used to live on Russel Cave rd. I hate that area of town.

Problem is at $20-50k your pretty much limited to all those areas.

This is accurate.

There are a few houses up for sale in my neighborhood, and there was one house recently built....in the last 12 months.

The guy selling these houses actually did my hardwood flooring refinish a couple years ago and it looks great.  He's listing 3 or 4 right now and they look very good.  I don't know what they're priced like though.

As a long time resident of Lexington, I have not seen a house for under 100K in a long, long time located somewhere in Lexington where I would live. There are probably some but they will be in bad shape if in a good neighborhood.

I lived in Lexington from 1986 to 2000 so my perspective maybe a little different than some others here


It was a great place to live in the 1980s.   It was a large city but not too large with still a small town atmosphere.  But that
is no longer the case. It is just like any other big city now.  Traffic is much worse and crime is higher than it used to be. But
that is too be expected since the population has grown by almost a 100000 since the 80s.  

But still an okay city to live in and though crime has risen it still is not bad. You most likely will not find a good house in a good neighborhood for the price range you quoted.  As another poster stated most good houses start at about 100000.    

For me personally I remember when it was a much nicer city where except for one section of the city you could walk around at night with
no fears.  To include my old neighborhood. But now I would not walk around where I used to live without being armed day or night

But overall it is still a decent place to live if you choose lexington. You could also look at surrounding towns like Nicholasville or versailles, etc which are close by unless you are set on living in Lexington.  Probably cheaper to live in surrounding towns as well

I live in 40503, intone Southland area.  I love it.  My family loves it. We are in a neighborhood, have a decent sized yard..have a garden and kids can still play baseball or football in the yard.  Have a park in the neighborhood and can go for walks safely.  Plus I have at least 3 neighbors who like to shoot.

Lexington is cool. I moved up here from NC a couple years ago and while I miss salt water, I've really enjoyed being here.



Based on what you just said, it sounds like you have 4 neighbors who like to shoot.

I'm not going to try to sell you on it, but I love living in Lexington.

There are some shitty areas checkered throughout but for the most part it's great.