Here it is August already and the market is showing signs of sizzling sales.
The real estate market posted another month of triple-digit sales for South Santa Barbara County. From Carpinteria to Goleta, home sales are averaging four a day, with an overall supply of seven months.
Don’t let the supply number fool you. Just when you hear the media talk about another wave of foreclosures, let’s look to see what’s happening here.
With the low end flying off the shelf and leaving only 17 homes in the area available for less than $600,000. Whether short sale, real estate owned by the bank or a traditional sale, the only difference is that there’s not much to choose from. With pressure on interest rates to rise in the future, might this be the bell ringing loudly, saying it’s time to buy if you’re going to buy at all?
The high-end inventory is rising slightly, while prices seem to be softening. There are 272 properties on the market for less than $1 million, and 248 are available for $1 million to $2 million. It seems like the right time to negotiate the best possible purchase ever in this price range.
Where else can you have weather as wonderful as ours all year at today’s prices and terms? We are the luckiest people in the world to get to live here, enjoy the community and feel like we are on vacation every day.
If you think these prices and interest rates will hold forever, though, think again.
— Elaine Abercrombie, a broker with Village Properties Realtors, is president-elect of the Santa Barbara Association of Realtors. She can be contacted at elaine@villagesite.com.