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 2015. For the Single Family Home market sales remained strong for the month coming in with 127 closings up from the 95 we saw in April. The Median Sales Price rose to $1,280,000 up from the $980,000 we saw at the end of April, while the days on the market for sold properties stayed stable at 52 from the 50 we saw the previous month. The opened escrows stayed stable from 121 in April to 120 in May, while the median list price on those escrows stayed steady at about $1.19 million from $1.17 million in April. There were about 145 new listings that came on the market in May with a median list price of approximately $1.195 million, with the overall inventory falling from 293 units for sale at the end of April to around 286 at the end of May.
Year over year sales are up about 12.5% with the median sales price up to roughly $1.13 million for a 2.5% rise. The numbers of escrows are up about 19% to roughly 540 with the median list price on those escrows up about 1% to roughly $1.175 million.
For the Condo segment of the market sales fell with 53 in May down from 65 in April. The median sales price went up however from $565,000 to roughly $590,000, and the numbers of escrows went down from 66 to 53 with the median list price on those escrows rising from $582,000 to $649,000.
There were about 55 new condo listings that came on the market for the month with a median list price of about $660,000. But unlike the Single Family Home market the overall inventory rose slightly from 60 at the end of April to just about 66 at the end of May.
Through the end of May sales are up for both single family homes and condos with homes rising about 12.5% and condos soaring roughly 42%. The median prices for both segments is also up with homes rising about 2.5% to approximately $1.13 million and condos going up about 3% to roughly $560,000.
During the month about 23% of homes sold for over the asking price and for condos that number was about 32%. The percentage of the sales price over the asking price for homes was approximately 3%, while for condos it was about 10% which is way above where it has been. On the other side of the coin 18% of the homes had a price reduction and 17% of the condos went down in price.
May is usually the peak month for sales and this year it looks like that pattern is holding. There does seen to some upward trend in prices with the percentage of homes sold over the asking price more than doubling to about 23%, but the percentage amount over the asking price is rather low at 3%. For condos 32% of the sales were over the asking price but about half of those sales were in the Hideaway. The outlook for the rest of the year still depends on the inventory. If listings start to rise then prices will stabilize but if the inventory remains low them prices will start to go up.
