This is an analysis of the Santa Barbara Real Estate market including Carpinteria/Summerland, Montecito, Hope Ranch, downtown Santa Barbara and Goleta through the month of April 2013. For the Home Estate/PUD market the numbers of sales went up in April to about 130 from the approximately 100 in March and roughly 80 in February. The Median Sales Price went down however to about $920,000 for the month falling slightly from the $929,000 in March and $926,000 in February. The opened escrows went up substantially however to almost 160 from the 122 in March and 110 in February while the median list price on those escrows increased for the past three months going from $917,000 in February to $949,000 in March and to about $975,000 in April. There were about 175 new listings that came on the market in April with a median list price of approximately $1.15 million and an average list price of just about $2 million while the overall inventory went up only slightly from about 289 units for sale in March to just fewer than 300 in April.
Year over year sales are up about 15% with the median sales price up to roughly $900,000 for a 16% rise. The average sales price is also up going from just over $1.237 million in 2012 to approximately $1.5 million in 2013 for a 19% rise and the numbers of escrows are also up about 11% with the median list price on those escrows up about 19%.
The Condo segment of the market remained strong with about 35 sales in April up from 28 in February but down from 37 in March. The median sales price went up a lot however from about $455,000 in March to roughly $555,000 in April and the numbers of escrows went up from 33 to over 40 for the month with the median list price on those escrows falling a little from $524,700 to about $515,000
There were roughly 60 new condo listings that came on the market for the month with a median list price of about $580,000 and an average list price of approximately $745,000 and, just like with the Home Estate/PUD market the overall inventory hardly moved at all coming in with about 65 active listings from Carpinteria to Goleta.
Through the end of April sales and the median sales price for both Single Family Homes and Condos are up. Of the properties that sold for the month roughly 35% of those sales were over the asking price and for condos that number was about 45%. The average over asking price for homes that sold was about 6.5% and for condos that number was about 7%. There have been a significant number of new listings coming on the market but the surge in escrows and sales has kept the overall inventory at a very low level. With prices starting to surge it will be interesting to see if the current pace of sales can be maintained.
