Santa Barbara's Real Estate Trend Continues-FLAT!

I have to admit I was starting to get optimistic about where the real estate sales numbers were headed. I thought we may see a little stronger number in May than we did. May's closings for the Goleta, Carpinteria, Santa Barbara and Montecito areas were 105.

With 111 closed transactions and what I perceived as a reasonable number of open escrows in April, I thought the number of closings in May would match or beat April. I was wrong, not the first time and certainly not the last time.

What will happen in the coming months? What happened to all those open escrows we had been seeing? Those are just a couple of the questions that come to mind regarding what's going on.

We are still experiencing a pretty active number of sale escrows opening. This would lead me to believe that the closing number could start rising soon, unless the number of cancellations is going to increase. More wait and see as far as what might be in our future.

The escrows we do have open seem to be hanging in there. The cancellations don't seem to be any higher than usual and I haven't heard about any real issues that would make me think that they aren't going to close. I do believe we are working harder on each escrow and they are certainly taking longer to get to the point of closing.

Why do I think the number of closings is a big deal? I'm a simple guy and supply and demand is the answer. As soon as we see the number of sales begin to increase is when the demand is building and that is when the prices will begin to increase again. Just my opinion!

So I ask you, take a look at the Market Trend Chart on our website and tell me what you think might be going on?

Santa Barbara Area Home Sales In April Trend Up!

Well it has been a while since the number of sales on the south coast has exceeded 100 and in April we hit 111. That beats the December number of 108 which was the most recent month over 100.

Since January we have seen a steady climb in sales, and 111 is a 26% increase from March. Not bad!

Carpinteria almost doubled the number of sales and went from 6 to 11. There were 2 high priced properties transferring, 168 Rincon Point Rd for $5,500,000 and 3284 Beach Club Rd for $6,100,000. Check out those properties. I could certainly live there!

Santa Barbara went from 40 transactions to 59 in April. with the highest priced property being 939 Arbolado Road.

Goleta had 24 sales in April. This market appears to be a bit anemic since there isn't much inventory. 24 was only an increase of 1 sale over March's number. Many of the sales in Goleta appear to be condos.

Montecito didn't show much improvement, but did increase from 11 to 13 in April. 1445 S. Jameson Ln. sold for $4,000,000 and that is one terrific looking home. It has a nice photo tour if you want to check it out.

Hope Ranch and Summerland both had properties sell in April when they didn't have any sell in March.

Historically these numbers aren't terrific, but it sure does feel as though buyers are starting to make offers and close transactions at a little brisker pace than they had been the previous few months. I wouldn't be surprised to see the number of transactions be above 100 in the months to come.

If you would like to check some additional information please view this link; CORT-Sales Stats By Area

April's Foreclosure Numbers For Santa Barbara County

Here it is May Day and the numbers are in. I'm not sure how the county gets them posted on their site so quickly but all the numbers of Notices of Defaults, Notice of Trustee Sales, and Trustees Deeds are complete for April.

The good news is each of those numbers went down from March. The Notices of Defaults went down from looks to be an all time high of 414 to 298. That is a significant drop and would appear to be more of a number you would expect. The 414 number would appear to be elevated because of the moratorium that had been put on recording Notices of Defaults.

Notices of Trustee Sales dropped from 203 to 189. Again the number went down and is far from the high of July of last year which was 305. The rest of the year will be interesting to see how this number goes. I certainly am hoping that all the new programs that are in place will keep people in their homes.

The number of Trustees Deeds that were recorded in April were down as well. April had 74 which is very low and hasn't been lower since July of 2007. That is really good news. It means less banks are taking back property. I wish I could explain what exactly is happening. I would welcome any insight in to this situation.

The bad news of course is that foreclosures and the process of foreclosures hasn't really stopped. There are still a significant amount of properties in one phase of foreclosure or another. I do believe there are some signs of them slowing up and hope that I am right.

I do know that many of the foreclosures are selling in the Santa Maria and Lompoc areas.