The Condo market for the West of State St area of Santa Barbara Real Estate has a slight decline in inventory year over year. This approximately 4% drop is offset by the 5% rise in new listings that have come on the market this year. But there’s been a huge reduction in the numbers of escrows where we see them off by about 46%. Interestingly enough while the escrows are down by 46% the sales are down by only 38%. Further cloud the issue is the fact that while both of those important numbers are down the average sales price is up by 8%. The condo numbers for the West Side are tilted by the number of very large sales which have occurred in the first part of ’08. Except for those $2 million plus sales the overall market price is down for the rest of the area.
For Home Estates in the Santa Barbara Real Estate area of West of State the inventory is also almost exactly where it was at this time last year show about a 1% drop. And the new listings that came on the market this year are down by just 2%. Unlike the condos however the decline in escrows is nowhere as extreme. This year we’ve seen a 17% drop in escrows but a 39% drop in sales. My hunch is that substantially more of those escrows will close sooner or later but for now that almost 40% drop in sales is substantial. The Average Sales Price is also down but now quite as significantly as the drop in sales and escrows. Currently we’re looking at a 4% drop from last year.
The PUD market for the Santa Barbara Real Estate area of West of State St there are 57% fewer listings overall and 66% fewer new listings. These numbers are deceptive because what we’re really talking about is 7 listings last year and 3 this year. The numbers of escrows are off by 50% but again that only means we had 2 last year and 1 this year. The sales are off by 100% but this means 1 sale last year and 0 this year. With so few PUDs on the market these numbers can be easily skewed.