What's Next?

I am probably like a lot of folks. I get out of bed and wrestle with getting my kids off to school and head in to the office.

What seems different these days is there is always a new piece of information that is supposed to determine where the real estate market is headed.

• Today it was Bloomberg.com reporting; U.S. Economy: Existing Home Sales Fall, Prices Drop, 2007 provided us with "the biggest annual slump in 25 years and the first decline in prices since the Great Depression."

• Yesterday it was Inman News reporting; The Bush administration appears willing to go along with an agreement by House Democrats and Republicans to boost the conforming loan limit.

• Tuesday it was Fed Cuts Interest Rates by 75 Bps

I could continue to go on and on and every day there is a new prediction on what is going to happen. Some say more gloom and doom, others are saying now is a good time to buy.

Here is my reality, our orders are up over December and they are as good as they have been since July of 2007. All of this is going on and we haven't even finished January yet.

This year is going to be a good year for the Real Estate Business in Santa Barbara. The sub prime issues of months past have created pent up demand. Interest rates are about as low as we've seen in years and there is the possibility of another rate cute soon. Get Ready, folks we are going to get busy.

Santa Barbara Real Estate For December 2007

You are living in historic times! As you can see from the chart to the left, the number of transactions for Santa Barbara's South Coast fell below the 100 number for the first time that I can remember. I CORT figures back to Jan of 1997 and Dec of 2007 is the first and only time this happened. This constitutes over a 33% decrease from December of 2006. It is only a 6% decrease from November. The last 4 or 5 months have been a real anomaly due in most part to the Sub Prime lending issues. I think the rebound we were seeing earlier in the year could have sustained itself if that had not factored in to the equation. This leads me to believe that there will be some pent up demand in the not to distant future. With respects to the individual markets of Montecito, Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, and Goleta the charts to the right show the number of sales in each area. Montecito and Summerland had their slowest months in recent history. This didn't surprise me too much in that I think folks with big money have just decided to sit out during the holidays. Santa Barbara showed a slight decrease, while Goleta showed a pretty significant move upward. Having Goleta improve this way I think is good for everyone. The low end of the market was pretty sluggish in 2007 and for our market to gain some real strength posting better volume in that are would be a terrific thing. Don't forget you will have access to these charts underneath the Market Trend section to the right. See You In Escrow!

Santa Barbara Real Estate Property Maps

The maps for December are now available. I am going to keep 3 to 6 months worth archived under Property Sales Maps to the right. I'm not sure how many months I should keep but I may also create another page where they will all be listed. There are currently 3 maps per month. One map showing the Real Estate Sales in Santa Barbara (which is displayed at the bottom of the page as well) and the South County which includes Carpinteria, Goleta, Montecito, & Summerland. Another map showing the sales in Santa Maria and the last map showing sales in Lompoc and The Santa Ynez Valley. This last map includes Buellton and Solvang as well as Santa Ynez and Lompoc. I want to point out that ZeeMaps is a free service and you can create your own maps. They even have a function where you can create a property map and it allows you to show all kinds of property information including a photo of the property within the map. The site is pretty user friendly and all you need to do is poke around on it for a short time to figure out what to do. If you need a little help in figuring it out don't hesitate to call get hold of me. Right now the service is completely free, but I'm not sure what their business model is yet, and so I wouldn't doubt it if they start to charge for the maps in some way. Remember to check back soon, as the Market Trends charts will be updated to reflect Decembers sales. Have a great weekend and See You In Escrow!

Thoughts on 2008 for Santa Barbara Real Estate

I was inspired to do a little something on 2008 and or maybe make some observations of my own about 2007 by reading this article from TheXBroker. I would recommend everyone read it. 2008 in Santa Barbara Real Estate I think is going to be the tail of 2 halves, almost like 2007 was but in reverse. The first half of the year is going to be when we see the housing market start to get it's legs under it. The sub prime crisis is going to slowly become less of an issue which will allow us to see fewer foreclosures on the market and create a scenario where buyers are going to start moving again. I think the mortgage meltdown that we have seen is causing some pent up demand that should start showing itself by the second half of 2008. So the first half will be the time where buyers and sellers are figuring out just where the price point is and getting comfortable with those numbers. From everything I'm hearing interest rates should remain low, which will allow properties to keep moving. I am predicting a 5 to 10% increase in transactions with a decrease of maybe 3 to 5% of the median price. I've never made specific predictions before, so let's see how I do. If you are interested in some predictions on what online real estate is going to do in 2008, check out the Future Of Real Estate Marketing. The Daily Sound also had an interesting post on 2007 the year in review. Good Luck in 2008 and See You In Escrow!