2022 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers
December 2022: The National Association of Realtors surveys home buyers and sellers every year and then compiles the data. It's often very interesting! These stats are for owner-occupied homes (the buyer's or seller's primary residence) for the period July 2021 through June 2022. This data is nation-wide, not local. I'll put some local comments in brackets. Characteristics of Home Buyers First-time buyers...
2021 Year-End Market Review
Here's a quick review of the 2021 Santa Barbara south coast market at the end of the year. The median price for houses throughout the South Coast at the end of 2021 was $1,900,000, an increase of 22.6% from one year ago. The median price for Montecito for the end of 2021 was $4,936,220 which reflects a 37.1% increase from one year...
Mid-year 2021 Real Estate Stats Update
Six months ago I wrote that our inventory of homes for sale was the lowest I'd ever seen. It sat at 1.1 months of inventory -- meaning that in just 33 days all houses listed for sale would be sold at the current pace of sales. This is usually somewhere between 3 and 6 months. Half way through the year...
2020 Record Real Estate Year in Santa Barbara
by Kalia Rork Santa Barbara posted record high real estate prices in 2020. Every district, from Goleta to Carpinteria, recorded the highest median sales prices ever in our area. Many people were surprised by the brisk pace of real estate sales, increasing demand, and higher prices here during the summer and fall -- even with the restrictions of the pandemic. Rather...
2019 Year-End Review
The 2019 median sales prices of houses in Santa Barbara reached $1,286,000 at year end. This surpasses the previous highest price of $1,250,000 in 2005. We've reached the highest median price for houses ever! The market is strong, prices continue to rise (although at a slower rate), and inventory is low. The graph above shows median price from 2004 through 2019...
Third Quarter 2019 Statistical Analysis
Third-Quarter 2019 South Coast Santa Barbara Real Estate Market Update Santa Barbara Association of Realtors, by Kalia J. Rork It’s fall and change is in the air. Many news articles, and certainly real estate industry publications, predict that the real estate market is changing, too. “Get ready for a changing market!” is a common headline. But is our local real estate market changing?...
“Inaccessible areas” in a termite report
What does "inaccessible areas" mean? I've recently purchased a new home that had extensive termite damage. The termite report came in at about $14,000 in repairs! I was able to negotiate a discount on the purchase price because of this, and agreed to handle the repairs on my own. But there was one standard clause in the report, one I've seen...
2018 RECAP Santa Barbara Real Estate Market
2018 Real Estate Prices This article first appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press and Voice in February, 2019. It was a little over a year ago that our Santa Barbara communities were beginning to come to terms with the extent of the human toll and property damage from the double tragedies of the Thomas Fire and the debris flow. When I wrote...
2018 mid-year statistical review and 2017 recap
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Published July 2018 In January or February of every year, I send out a newsletter to my clients and friends that recaps the prior year’s real estate market and statistics. Early in 2017, as you all know, we were all dealing with the tragedy and devastating losses of the Thomas Fire and the debris flow that severely impacted Montecito and Carpinteria, and...
2016 Real Estate Year-End Review
2016 REAL ESTATE YEAR-END REVIEW Most of us would agree that 2016 was a dramatic and eventful year. It might be a bit reassuring to know that for local real estate, 2016 was a fairly normal and calm year. Refreshingly, we didn’t have many surprises. There were almost no foreclosures or distressed sales (just 0.9% of total sales), and our median...