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!