April Santa Maria Property Sales, Incredible!

The north part of Santa Barbara County has not seen any real improvement in the number of sales in a long time. Last month that all changed.




Santa Maria absolutely exploded! There were 134 transactions reported by CORT. That is a 54% increase in the number of sales from March. It is almost a 60% increase from April of 2007.


I can hardly contain myself when I see that number. To see a market have this much activity when it has had such hard times for so long is very exciting. I can only hope it is a trend and not some sort of strange aberration.




The news about Lompoc isn't quite as exciting, but none the less it is hanging in there. There were 42 transactions reported compared to 45 in March. Not a big difference, but if you look at the chart Lompoc saw a nice sized increase in their transactions the month before.


The combined number of transactions was the most for an April on our chart going back four years. Pretty exciting news for the North County. I really get the feeling that the lower priced homes in our market are becoming appealing to buyers and investors. Rates are good prices are down and people who can qualify for loans should be buying if you ask me. Maybe they think so as well.


See You In Escrow!

Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, Goleta, & Montecito Sales For April 2008

I am marginally good as a prognosticator, and I was off on my guess regarding how many properties we would see being sold in Santa Barbara, Goleta, Carpinteria, and Montecito in April.

I cheated and looked at the CORT numbers about halfway through the month and we were in the neighborhood of 80 transactions. So I went a little conservative and told folks I thought we would hit 150. I was wrong there were 135.

Now before you think that is bad news, I want to point out that this in an increase of over 10% from March. Why is this good besides the obvious?

If you look at the chart this is the first time we have seen an increase from March to April. I'm thinking this is great news.

The only area that slowed down from March was Goleta. There were 26 transactions compared to 32 in March. Carpinteria increased slightly from 11 to 12. Santa Barbara increased from 56 to 65 and Montecito had the biggest percentag increase going from 23 to 32.

I glanced at the Santa Maria and Lompoc charts and they looked better than they have in many months. I'll get that information up shortly.

See You In Escrow!

April Santa Barbara Association Of Realtors Statistics

The Santa Barbara Association of Realtors has reported it's numbers for the month of April 2008.

Gary Woods one of the dedicated members of the association has created a power point of the information I am posting below.

That Association reported a higher number of sales in April as well as a pretty steady median price for both condos and homes.

Check out the slide show for all the details.


See You In Escrow!