For Santa Barbara Real Estate’s Carpinteria Real Estate/Summerland Real Estate area the Median Sales price for ’08 through April 15 has been $946,125 for Home Estate/PUDs. This compares to a year ago for the same time period when the Median Sales price was $1,615,000. This substantial drop illustrates two things. First the number of sales on the high end is down and also the overall value for the area has diminished. Interestingly enough the Median List price of $1,399,000 for ’08 is substantially higher than the Median List price of ’07 which was $1,029,000. So this tells us that the houses farther up on the scale have been listed but presently not that many have sold.
The gap between the current Median Sales price of $946,125 and the current Median List price for the entire inventory of $1,399,000 is almost $450,000 which gives us a gap of about 50%. I think this gap will diminish throughout the year as higher priced homes start to sell but currently that’s a rather wide chasm between what people are willing to pay and what people are willing to sell for.
The numbers of sales which were dramatically down earlier in the year have started to come back for the area. Last year at this time there were 19 sales of Home Estate/PUDs compared to the current number of 13 which is in contrast to the inventory which is larger than it was last year when there were 60 properties listed compared to the current 72.
For Santa Barbara Real Estate’s Carpinteria Real Estate/Summerland Real Estate area for the condo market the picture is a little starker. In ’08 we’ve seen only 8 sales through April 15 compared to 11 for the same period in ’07. The Median Sales price has also dropped substantially with the Median Sales price currently residing at $472,500 compared to a year ago when it was $598,000.
The gap between the Sales Price and the Median List price is also substantial. Currently the Median List price is $679,000 which gives us a gap of over $200,000 between the Median Sales price.
This gap was definitely not as pronounced last year when the Median List price stood at $579,900 compared to the Median Sales price of $598,000. So our interesting phenomenon is that last year people were asking less and getting more and in ’08 they’re asking more and getting less.