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 2015. For the Single Family Home market sales remained strong for the month coming in with 94 closings but down from the 117 we saw in March. The Median Sales Price fell to about $975,000 from the $1,205,000 we saw in March while the days on the market for sold properties went to around 51 from the 54 we saw in the previous month. The opened escrows went up substantially from 114 in March to about 125 in April, while the median list price on those escrows stayed at about $1.22 million from $1,197,500 in March. There were about 165 new listings that came on the market in April with a median list price of approximately $1.349 million, while the overall inventory rose from 283 units for sale at the end of February to 293 at the end of March.
Year over year sales are up about 12.5% with the median sales price at roughly $1.05 million for a 2.7% decline. The numbers of escrows are up about 20.5% to approximately 425 with the median list price on those escrows up around 5.5% to $1.185 million.
For the Condo segment of the market sales also remained strong rising to about 65 in April up from 56 in March. The median sales price went down from $587,000 to roughly $565,000, while the numbers of escrows went down from 70 to approximately 66 with the median list price on those escrows rising from $557,000 to about $585,000.
There were about 70 new condo listings that came on the market for the month with a median list price of about $690,000. And, just like with the Single Family Home market the overall inventory remained stagnant with 66 units for sale at the end of March dropping to 60 at the end of April.
Through the end of April sales of Single Family Homes are up about 12.5% while the median sales price is down about 2.5%. Condo sales on the other hand are up about 45% while the median sales price is up only about 3.5%. Of the houses that sold about 9% of them sold for over the asking price and for condos that number was about 26%, but the majority of the over asking condo sales were in The Hideaway. Of those 9% of homes that went out for over the asking prices the average over asking price was about 3.5% and for condos that number was about 5%. On the other side of the coin 18% of the homes and 26% of the condos had a price reduction.
The inventory is starting to creep up a little and compared to last year home sales are way up. But when you compare sales to 2013 they’re actually down. The median sales price for homes is also down at this point despite all the high priced listings that have sold over $5 million.
Condo sales on the other hand are at a 5-year high with The Hideaway playing a big part in the number of sales. The median sales price however is up only a bit. Hopefully the inventory will continue to rise which will lead to more sales but currently there’s no upward pressure in prices.
