Can You Believe These Numbers!

The Cort information for February came in and I can't believe how few properties closed escrow.

The home sales for Carpinteria, Goleta, Santa Barbara, & Montecito combined only hit 87. I have been in this community for about 20 years and I can't remember the number ever being that low.

It isn't unusual for the number of transactions to dip a little from January, which they did, but I just can't get over how low that number has gone.

I feel like I'm in the middle of a good old staring contest. The first person to blink loses. The buyers are staring at the seller expecting them to lower their prices and the sellers are saying I won't go any lower.

Who will blink first?

What I am hearing is that many of the sellers don't need to sell and so if they don't get their price then they will just take their property off the market.

What I'm hearing about buyers is that they are seeing properties they would like to purchase, but they think the prices are going to go lower.

I talked with a stock broker yesterday and the topic of timing the stock market came up and we both agreed it is next to impossible to do. I think the same goes for the real estate market. If buyers are waiting for the prices to decrease, they may just miss the boat on what could be the perfect home for them.

Rates are very good right now, prices have come down and buyers have choices. Sounds like a pretty good environment to me to be buying a home.

Here is how the numbers broke down.

Montecito was the only community to have it's number go up from January. The number of sold properties in Montecito was 17, up from 10 in January.

Santa Barbara saw a small decline in the number of sold properties, going from 41 to 38 in February.

The Goleta area had 26 sold properties down from 31 in January.

Last but not least was the Carpinteria area, going from 10 in January to 6 in February.

I think we will see some increased numbers in March for sold properties. I am basing that on the number of escrows we as a company have opened and are in the process of closing. Time will tell if that increase is going to be significant or not. I'm not expecting it to be, and if it isn't we may see some kind of a small surge towards the end of the year.

See You In Escrow!