In pre-COVID times, one could buy a very nice home with 2,000 – 3,000 square feet of living space on a larger lot (over half-acre) or in a prime spot or beach area, for around $2 to $2.5 million. I can point to dozens of closed comps just two years ago, that illustrate how these […]
This is it, a run-up in the market the likes we have never seen. I’m not talking about Wall Street or the stock market, which is also up, so maybe that’s what is funding and fueling this buying craze here in Montecito, where we are seeing a phenomenon, of sorts. I am talking again about […]
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The real estate market in Santa Barbara and surrounding areas continues to be stronger than ever, with the first quarter statistics confirming that sellers currently have the advantage over buyers. With staggeringly low inventory, and an influx of out-of-town buyers adding to our already strong local buyer pool, home prices are at an all-time high. […]
At this point I am unsure of whether we will see enough new listings hit the market in Montecito before the last house goes up for sale and is sold. That won’t happen — will it? — but if you follow the numbers, it’s not impossible. As of right now we only have about 47 […]
Something tells me that times they are a-changing in Montecito… Whether it’s the 50-plus cars I saw at both the Hot Springs and San Ysidro Trailheads on the same day recently, or that I could not find a parking spot at sunset near Butterfly Beach on a weekday in March, or the fact that booking […]
Considering there are fewer homes in the Multiple Listing Service (the MLS, which feeds Realtor.com, Zillow, and others) than at any other time in the past 20 years, I feel it’s an interesting time to pause and ask (as others often ask me), what’s next in our real estate market? Will the buyers who find […]
The desire of so many to purchase a home in Montecito, along with the phenomenal number of homes sold and sales over ten million dollars this past year, has been covered at length in many local and national publications. This rush to buy has left Montecito’s Real Estate market with very few homes for sale, […]
We will likely start February off much as we started January, with very few homes available for sale in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) in Montecito. As of January 23, there were only 76 homes and condos on the market in all of Montecito and the entire 93108 zip code, when normally there would be […]
As he approaches retirement, Bruce Giffin, one of Santa Barbara’s top developers, ponders his legacy Construction is known for being a tough business. Competition is high, margins are low, cash flow swings in both directions and a shortage of skilled workers makes the industry all the more precarious. As he approaches his 35th anniversary in the […]
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As we begin to slow the ride on this incredible rollercoaster of a year, it is important to consider all that has changed in the past 11-plus months. The pandemic, the political and social climate of uncertainty, the business and day-to-day implications of these circumstances that make it feel like a lifetime of adjustment all […]
One phrase has summed up the mortgage world since March: “record low rates.” Lenders have seen their pipelines swell to levels never seen before and things do not seem to be slowing down. Rates for conforming loans have been held low by the government’s intervention in purchasing mortgage-backed securities to aid in market liquidity. Meanwhile […]
With over fifty percent of the homes in the area being rentals, and many of the owners living outside of the region, property management plays a vital role in maintaining the range of real estate found throughout Santa Barbara and Montecito. Many houses have just mom and pop homeowners who may not have the time […]
Signs that a community is in the throes of an historic transformation are rarely overt and almost never seismic. They’re small yet perceptible shifts that, in aggregate, tell a story of where a town or a city is coming from and where it’s most likely headed. In the case of Montecito those signs – at […]
To say that Montecito real estate was “hot” in the third quarter of 2020 is a gross understatement; in fact, the market activity in late summer/early fall broke records across the board in both sales price and number of transactions, in both the 93108 and beyond. Q3 sales in 2020 were up a whopping 156% […]
