All Real Estate is Local!

All real estate is local! “South County” real estate is doing very nicely thank you! With only 40 foreclosures total on the South Coast in the whole of 2007, there is no tipping point here to bring values down any further. (Those foreclosures have, for the most part, been purchased, not sitting unsold as is happening in other locales.) Indeed, only 2 local areas have had downturns in their median prices over the past 3-4 years: Carpinteria and Goleta, both down around 15%. Santa Barbara’s median price has remained steady for 3 years at $1,015,000-$1,050,000 and Montecito has enjoyed a “non-downturn” adding around10% to its median price each year for the past 4 years.

In today’s real estate environment, how do buyers and sellers put themselves ahead of the market? Here’s how: instead of relying on closed escrow prices of homes that sold 2, 4 and 6 months ago, to judge values, the answer lies in calculating and analyzing the “pace” of the specific market for their particular home, be it geographical or by dollar price range. This process will give you the number of months of inventory in that particular segment, showing the buyer or seller how much leverage they have. This helps sellers with pricing strategy and buyers with negotiating power. The power of this information, helps buyers and sellers make sense of where their property is in the general market - this takes the guess work out of “hasn’t the low end gone down the most?” and “isn’t the high end still hot?”

As a gauge, the SB market as a whole currently has 6.9 months of inventory available for homes and PUDs; vs. 10-11 months of inventory just 5 months ago. For condos, there is currently 8.8 months of inventory, this is down from over 12 months of inventory, 5 months ago. If you compare your own home’s, or target home’s, “market velocity” to the general market you will have an inside track as to succeeding in this confusing time. Call me to get the “pace” of your particular neighborhood and price range .. this information will transform confusion into clarity and will make/save you thousands of dollars.

As a side note, and a further indication of how well our market is doing: 93 homes and condos went into escrow in the past 30 days .. 74 of those sales happened in the past 2 weeks.