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 May 2014. For the Home Estate market sales remained strong for the month coming in with about 110 closings up from the 100 we saw in April. The Median Sales Price rose to about $1,125,000 from the $1,110,500 we saw at the end of April, while the days on the market for sold properties stayed stable at around 47 from the 49 we saw the previous month. The opened escrows went down a little however from 115 in April to roughly 100 in May, while the median list price on those escrows went up to about $1.2 million from $1,175,000 in April. There were about 140 new listings that came on the market in May with a median list price of approximately $1.5 million and an average list price of about $2.649 million, with the overall inventory rising from about 300 units for sale in April to around 320 in May.
Year over year sales are down about 23% with the median sales price up to roughly $1,100,000 for a 23% rise. The average sales price is also up going from just over $1.446 million in 2013 to approximately $1.67 million in 2014, but the numbers of escrows are down about 21% to roughly 455 with the median list price on those escrows up over 20% to about $1.149 million.
For the Condo segment of the market sales also remained strong with about 43 in May up slightly from 42 in April. The median sales price went down however from about $602,000 to roughly $560,000, and the numbers of escrows went down from 51 to approximately 37 with the median list price on those escrows rising from $529,000 to about $537,000.
There were about 58 new condo listings that came on the market for the month with a median list price of about $548,500 and an average list price of approximately $752,000. And, just like with the Home Estate market the overall inventory rose slightly from just below 105 to just about 115.
Through the end of May sales are down for both single family homes and condos with homes falling about 23% and condos dropping roughly 12%. But, the median prices for both segments is up with homes rising about 21% to approximately $1.1 million and condos going up about 20% to roughly $550,000.
During the month about 26% of homes sold for over the asking price and for condos that numbers was about 29%. The percentage of the sales price over the asking price for homes was approximately 5.4% while for condos it was only about 2.2%. The percentage of sales this year versus sales last year should start to get closer together because from May until December last year sales dropped off while they appear to be remaining stable this year. But, the median sales price for homes does appear to be continuing to rise while condos prices are moderating.
