What Kind of Real Estate Does $1 Million and $2 Million Buy You In Santa Barbara and Montecito?

A few times a year I like to give updates on what you can expect for various price points in Santa Barbara and Montecito.  Over the last few years this has changed quite drastically as the market first went down and now has come back up at such a strong pace. Most homes today for example are worth on average about 20% more than they were just a year ago and so this leads to generally a decently different home.  In Santa Barbara, if you are at the $1 Million price point and you... Continue Reading >

New Listing – Wonderful Downtown Santa Barbara Town Home

Just Listed 527 West Pueblo I am please to offer a wonderful new downtown town home located just 1 block from Cottage Hospital.  This spacious and well cared for Spanish style 3 bed, 3 bath downtown condo has an attached extra large 1 car garage with lots of built in storage, quiet and small association, high ceilings and skylights, 3 patios/decks, open kitchen.  Great location centrally located close to all that Santa Barbara downtown offers.  Easy on and off the freeway.  One bedroom & one bath are located on the ground level and 2... Continue Reading >

Santa Barbara Ranked As One of Best Housing Markets For the Next 5 Years by Business Insider

This last week, Business Insider published and article (by Mamta Badker) ranking the 15 best housing markets for the coming 5 years.  Just as I have been pointing out with statistics over the last 5 months here in Santa Barbara, our market is strong.  Here below is a quick excerpt from the article that puts Santa Barbara 5th best on the list of 15 real estate markets. "National home prices are expected to climb 0.3 percent in the next year, according to the latest home price report by Fiserv Case - Shiller.... Continue Reading >

Santa Barbara Real Estate Seriously Rebounding – Recent Forbes.com article

Here is a new article just published this last week online at forbes.com by Ken Harney. "It’s probably no surprise that roller-coaster real estate markets like Phoenix and Miami are in roaring rebound mode this year, but Santa Barbara? Who knew? Sometimes called the “American Riviera” for its red tile-roofed estates overlooking the Pacific, year-round great climate, active cultural life and its movie star residents, Santa Barbara took a significant though little publicized hit during the real estate bust, with median home list prices plunging from $1,667,500 in September 2007 to $649,000... Continue Reading >

What Does $1 Million Buy in Today’s Very Strong Santa Barbara Real Estate Market?

Where is our real estate market today? We continue to see buyers very very comfortable with where the Santa Barbara real estate market is today.  Most reports and statistics are also showing that this very strong market is not just a tick here and there, but a market with "very strong legs".  We have now seen about 6-8 straight months of solid activity with homes selling quickly and prices very stable.  Here in Santa Barbara, we are now once again confronted with multiple offer situations on many homes, with some homes even seeing... Continue Reading >

Santa Barbara Real Estate – What is the Early Pulse of The 2012 Real Estate Market?

Often as a Realtor I am asked...for obvious reasons: Where is the real estate market these days? How is the real estate market these days? Are homes selling fast, slow etc.? Basically all of these questions mean "What is happening in Real Estate right now?" Across the board from the lower starting end at around $200,000 to $600,000, to the middle of the market from $700,000 to $1.5 million all the way to the luxury high end of $5 million and above, homes are selling. In the lower end from around $200,000 to $600,000, most all... Continue Reading >

2011 Santa Barbara Real Estate Market Wrap up for The Peabody Elementary School District

The main areas for the Peabody Elementary School District encompass the neighborhoods of San Roque, some of the Santa Barbara Foothills and a stretch of Downtown Santa Barbara West of State Street.  For many people here in Santa Barbara, San Roque has become one of the quintessential "family neighborhoods" and has often been voted for as "Best Neighborhood" in a local paper's poll. Much of the housing in The San Roque area consists of older character single family homes.  Many of these homes are smaller in size running in the 900 to 1400 sqft range,... Continue Reading >

Are You an Expert Real Estate Agent in Santa Barbara? Know Your Community!!

Be a True Real Estate Expert! When looking for a great real estate agent, most buyers and sellers are not looking for someone to simply guide them through the A to Z process of paper work when it comes to real estate.  This is in fact simply a given...but buyers and sellers (especially out of town buyers and sellers) are mostly looking to their agent as a knowledge source of the local schools, the local cultural scene, the "good and great" neighborhoods, information on local events, news and attractions...basically someone who... Continue Reading >

So What Does $1 Million Buy You in Today’s Santa Barbara Real Estate Market?

As the Santa Barbara real estate market has come down in price over the last few years, it is interesting to now compare certain benchmark price points such as what $500,000 buys or $ 1 million or $2 million etc. Overall in the last 12 months we have been relatively stable on prices with a small overall drop...so there has not been a huge change in the last 12 months.  Nothing at least compared to 2007 - 2009 where we dropped a combined 25-40 % depending on exact neighborhood, home etc. So... Continue Reading >

With These Incredibly Low Mortgage Rates, Is Now a Good Time to Buy Santa Barbara Real Estate?

For most of us, purchasing a home by timing the bottom of the real estate market would be the ideal. With almost every buyer that I work  with, there will be at least a few conversations about whether I feel we are near the bottom, the overall state of the market and inevitably whether I believe that prices will go lower or not.  Unfortunately no one including myself has an exact answer to this. What is true about our real estate market is the belief by many that the current affordability here... Continue Reading >

What Questions You Need to Ask Your Santa Barbara Real Estate Agent

The decision to sell or buy a home here in the Santa Barbara and Montecito area is not a small decision based on the prices of homes that exist in our community.  Because of this, if you are not careful in who you choose to represent you, you can be throwing away tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Often people will base their decision on which Realtor to use by whom they feel the most comfortable working with, whom they know personally and/or which Realtor is a great referral from... Continue Reading >

Google and Real Estate Search Do Not Quite Get It!!

Google is an amazing tool for so much of seemingly everything on the Internet.  Not many will doubt this in my opinion and therefore for me there is no need here to elaborate too much.  But what about real estate search? Google obviously would like (love) to win the real estate search game.  As far as I can see so far, to their dismay they are far from this goal.  With all the technology out there and a few prominent aggregate sites such as Trulia and Zillow, Google is stepping up... Continue Reading >