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 July 2014. For the Home Estate/PUD market sales dropped a little for the month coming in with 90 closings down from the 103 we saw in June. The Median Sales Price remained steady at about $1,175,000 from the $1,186,500 we saw in June, while the days on the market for sold properties went to around 50 from the 46 we saw in the previous month. The opened escrows also stayed stable from 101 in June to just below 100 in July, while the median list price on those escrows remained steady at just under $1.3 million from $1.3 million in June. There were approximately 145 new listings that came on the market in July with a median list price of approximately $1.17 million and an average list price of about $2.1 million, with the overall inventory falling from 319 units for sale at the end of June to about 315 at the end of July.
Year over year sales are down about 20% with the median sales price up to roughly $1.125 million for a 21% rise. The average sales price is also up going from just over $1.4 million in 2013 to approximately $1.8 million in 2014, and the numbers of escrows are down about 18% with the median list price on those escrows up over 20%.
For the Condo segment of the market sales remained strong rising to 42 in July up from 34 in June. The median sales price went up a lot however from $489,500 to roughly $570,000, and the numbers of escrows went up from 37 to 43 with the median list price on those escrows rising from $554,000 to about $560,000.
There were about 60 new condo listings that came on the market for the month with a median list price of about $625,000 and an average list price of approximately $740,000. And, just like with the Home Estate/PUD market the overall inventory rose slightly from just below 120 to just about 125.
Through the end of July sales of both single family dwellings and condos is down while the prices for both segments is up. In July for the Home Estate/PUD market about 16.8% of the home sales sold for over the asking price and for condos that number was 14.6%. For Homes the percentage of the sales price over the asking price was about 3.4% while for condos it was only about 1.1%. On the other side of the coin 26% of the homes listed for sale had price reductions and 19% of the condos listed for sale had price reductions.
After a strong rise in prices for the first two quarters it looks like for both condos and single family homes those surges have moderated. But, if the inventory continues at the present level it looks like quarter 3 sales could start to pick up and that may trigger another round of price hikes.
