Santa Barbara real estate has taken a plunge, with median home list prices down from $1,667,500 in September 2007 to $649,000 this May.
This May’s median list price in Santa Barbara – low as it may appear compared with the peak — was actually 30 percent higher than the same month last year, and nearly one-fifth higher than April of this year.
Meanwhile, total home sales in May were double the year earlier. Pending contracts were up by nearly 80 percent.
Santa Barbara is the second hottest metropolitan real estate market in the U.S. after only Phoenix, according to a new survey by Realtor.com, based on data from hundreds of local Multiple Listing Services around the country.
Local real estate brokers say the market is so fast-paced that virtually any realistically priced home that’s listed is being snapped up. New listings are selling 20 percent faster than they were a year ago.
Santa Barbara also has a good employment rate. Metropolitan Santa Barbara’s unemployment rate is nearly 3 percentage points lower than the California statewide rate, 8.2 percent in May compared with 10.8 for California as a whole.
Consumers with good local jobs can afford the $649,000 current median asking price for homes, and they are signing contracts to buy a piece of this jewel by the sea.
