If you are moving to Montecito, you are likely doing so for a specific reason or for a few. We arrived 20 years ago to raise our daughter here, among the many generations of family we had in the area at the time, and so we could reset from city life to a more chill, […]
As we head into the holiday season, the Montecito real estate market has slowed considerably; as of press time there have been just 39 sales so far in Q4, compared to 99 sales in the same time period last year. Q3 saw a slowdown as well, with 82 sales from July through September, compared to […]
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Lovely warm days mixed with overcast mornings and a couple of very chilly nights tells us that we are heading into winter (more rain please). Daylight saving time has kicked in, which is great for the early birds and surfers, bringing light before 6 am. That said, I’m still getting used to darkness in the […]
As the weather teases us between hot and cold, and as the first rain falls and the clocks prepare to turn back time, we start looking ahead to the holidays, a new year, and we say hello to a lot of new neighbors. By my estimate, in the past 18 months we have seen approximately […]
Well, it looks like our Santa Barbara summer is finally here. OK, not the commonly thought of summer – Memorial Day to Labor Day – but the secret summer that we locals know, the October summer that often brings the best weather of the year. The islands are clear, the ocean glistens from a lower […]
It seems as if fall has arrived a tad unannounced, at least for me. I had been waiting for those definite signs of summer: feeling unbearably hot, the ocean warming up considerably for at least a few weeks, and that moment when one starts looking forward to cooler weather. The May Gray/June Gloom hung in […]
What a difference a month (of big sales) can make. In my last article reviewing Montecito’s Real Estate activity for June and most of July, I focused on the lack of sales of more than $10 million. In that writing, I also noted an overall sales volume decline that put sales numbers closer to normal […]
As we kick summer into high gear and the fog fights with the sun for control of the day, the real estate market in Montecito remains robust, yet leveling off to a more normal number we are used to seeing in past years. Additionally, we are seeing fewer sales recently in the over $10 million […]
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 […]
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Santa Barbara’s venerable Granada Theatre is back in business! The eight-story icon that towers over State Street, originally built in 1873 and rebuilt in 1924, has been eerily silent for the past 15 months, other than intermittent audience-free video filming by the Santa Barbara Symphony under maestro Nir Kabaretti. But it will finally be all […]
In addition to more than double normal sales volume for the past 15 months, there have been more sales over $20 million in the past year or so than at any other time in history. Sales in the $20s have happened in the past, and a very few have sold at more than $20,000,000 in […]
In Montecito, spring basically brought us no rain, and summer is just around the corner. I can tell because the weekends are teeming with people on Coast Village Road and the mix of overcast and sun is keeping me dressing in layers still. But I’m working on my summer feet, when we walk barefoot more […]
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 […]
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. […]
