The first half of 2010 has shown to be an active one for the Hope Ranch real estate market as the number of sales compared to the same time frame in 2009 increased by an impressive 42%. The price range for home sales in Hope Ranch went from $1,600,000 on the low end to a high of $7,300,000 with 4 being under $2,000,000, 3 over $5,000,000 and the remaining 3 in between. This compares to 2009 when there was just 1 sale above $5,000,000 and also just one below $2,000,000. Hope Ranch is a beautiful area of Santa Barbara (click here for a quick view of Santa Barbara Real Estate for Sale) consisting of approximately 750 properties.  Hope Ranch has a private beach, tennis courts, a country club with golf course, and equestrian trails meandering thru-out the community.  Most lots are in excess of an acre affording lots of privacy. Views are quite varied and can be panoramic taking in the mountains, Laguna Blanca Lake, the golf course, and ocean and islands, too! There are currently 28 properties for sale in Hope Ranch starting with a 4 bdrm ranch on 1.5 woodsy acres priced at $1,895,000 up to one of the most spectacular oceanfront estates in Hope Ranch for sale at $29,000,000.  The incredible 14 acre grounds will take your breath away – like being in your own private park surrounded by towering oaks and redwoods.  The estate is gated of course and includes a 6 bedroom, 10 bath residence, exquisite  pool & pavilion, volley ball court, sprawling lawns and 1000 ft of  bluff top ocean front.  If Oprah is looking to expand her real estate portfolio this would be a wonderful addition!

The luxury home segment in Santa Barbara has seen a very active spring! Fourteen estate properties have closed escrow at the $5,000,000 +  price since April 1. This compares to 8 properties closing in this price range for the same time period last year. That is an astounding 75% increase in closed sales! Perhaps the money is coming out of gold and into real estate again! The highest priced sale is an oceanfront estate which sold for $16,250,000. Located in a guard gated community this gorgeous 7000 s.f. Cape Cod style home has 5 bdrms, 7 baths and 190’ beach frontage on 2+ acres. And yes it has a guest house and a home theater! Originally priced at $32,500,000 when it hit the market in 2008 – it sold at an impressive 50% discount – I’d say well worth the wait!

Another notable luxury estate that recently closed escrow is a 1930’s Dutch Cape on 3.5 acres with dramatic mountain and ocean views in Montecito. Located just a stone’s throw from Oprah’s little place this property was written about in a previous blog about Montecito ocean view estates! It came on the market at $23,900,000 a year ago and just closed escrow at an even $15,000,000. Some great deals have been made in the Santa Barbara luxury market. Sellers are showing lots of motivation as can be seen by looking at the list to sales prices. Watch for an update on the Hope Ranch estate market next!

The Wall Street Journal has stated that Greenwich, Connecticut had a phenomenal end to 2009 with huge increases in sales volume in the luxury real estate market.  The west coast has also seen some large sales with a recent  Beverly Hills property selling to the tune of $35,000,000.  More specifically, in the Santa Barbara luxury real estate market we have seen 4 major estates go into escrow in the past month. The first property in Montecito is a recently built 8500 sf. Tuscan Villa with dramatic ocean, city, harbor, island and mountain views. Located at the end of a private lane off Hot Springs Road this luxury home on a 3 acre site also boasts a pool, spa, and guest house. This Montecito view home was offered at $11,900,000 when it went into escrow. The next Montecito estate to go under contract is an impressive Mediterranean in Ennisbrook with 6 bdrms and 11 baths in the main house. In addition to all the amenities of the previously mentioned estate this Montecito property also has a tennis court with pavilion and a garage for 9 cars. This luxury estate was offered at $14,750,000.The 3^rd Montecito estate that has just gone into escrow is a knoll top Tuscan Villa with captivating views and over 10,000 square feet of luxury. It offers the utmost in privacy being on approx. 40 acres. This estate’s current list price is $8,750,000. The 4^th estate is a 1929 Reginald Johnson on the Riviera which was listed at $8,900,000. It is the quintessential  old world charmer on 3 acres with gently rolling lawns overlooking the fabulous ocean, city, and mountain views. Yes, there is a pool and guest house, too! Quoted in the fore mentioned Wall Street Journal article a representative for residential real estate at U.S.Trust Bank of America Private Wealth Management commented that they have experienced an increase in buying over the past few months. It seems that the luxury real estate market overall may be starting to rebound! We will keep you posted on the Santa Barbara, Montecito, and Hope Ranch estate market. Watch for the closed sales prices in a future blog.

Santa Barbara Oceanfront Home Site Easterly View

We feel that this is THE premier Santa Barbara Ocean Front Home Site. Why? because it has the very rare and unusual characteristic of actully having an Easterly view. Right. How can a West Coast Santa Barbara CA oceanfront property have an Easterly sunrise view? Well, first of all, the Santa Barbara shoreline actually faces south. That is why Santa Barbara coastal living has one of the most perfect micro climates in the world. (There  are only 4 other micro climates like this on the planet, in the Southern French Riviera, a coastal area in New Zealand, another small coastal area in Australia, and another small coastal area of South Africa). 

This beautiful Santa Barbara beach home is on a unique cut of the Santa Barbara coast line facing South and East before the coast line starts looping back to a Southerly view. This allows you to see the incredible sunrise over the Santa Ynez Mountains (which were recently snow capped which happens once every couple of years at the higher elevations). You can step to Santa Barbara’s beautiful Shoreline Park with acres of bluff top lawn, gardens and playground, steps to the beach, and BBQ areas. But those aren’t even the best parts. Directly in front of this Santa Barbara oceanfront home site is a favorite local surf spot, so you have your own live surfing extravaganza to watch almost daily. Just to the left of that, you can watch kayakers and paddle boarders from Santa Barbara Harbor, which has an on-going flow of boating traffic. Santa Barbara Harbor has its regular Regatta and also hosts many international visits from the most spectacular sporting yachts in the world. There are occasional cruise ship visits and even a nearly annual visit from the USS Ronald Reagan, a state of the art U.S. Naval Aircraft Carrier. Althought precious few, there are other Santa Barbara ocean view properties, but not with this proximity to walking to downtown Santa Barbara, State Street and famed Stearns Wharf  a few hundred yards away. With the level of ocean activities right in front of you and with stunning views of Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and Anacapa Islands, and regular visits by dolphins and even Hump Back whales it’s not hard to understand why we feel this is really not just one of the most spectacular and desirable Santa Barbara home sites, but one of the finest home sites in the world. Build your perfect Santa Barbara Luxury Home here. If you are interested in this home site or one similar (difficult to duplicate this one) contact stevedre@cox.net . We have several unique Santa Barbara estate and Santa Barbara waterfront homes available for purchase or lease.

I recently saw the movie “Its Complicated” , a romantic comedy set in Santa Barbara, directed by Nancy Meyers and starring a Santa Barbara resident, Steve Martin and a Classic Santa Barbara estate. In an interview in Santa Barbara Magazine, Nancy Meyers says she chose a Santa Barbara property for the locale in the movie due to its natural beauty and the peace of mind and calm she feels when she comes here. She further states “It feels as close to the good life as you can get”.  Yes, we feel rather the same way. Santa Barbara is not just a place – it is a lifestyle! There were lots of Santa Barbara property scenes in the movie such as the spectacular Santa Barbara Courthouse, the historic El Paseo, and several Montecito property locations, including the scene where Meryl Streep is having her morning jog – on one of the Montecito area’s charming country roads. Many Santa Barbara Estates were within steps including Oprah’s Montecito luxury property. The house in the movie is the quintessential Santa Barbara home full of charm and character with a red tile roof, adobe brick, archways, terra cotta tile, wrought iron, and a great indoor-outdoor flow to covered verandas and lush gardens. As a matter of fact, if you happen to be looking for a similar Santa Barbara property may we be so bold as to offer our considerable Santa Barbara estate expertise to acquire your Santa Barbara dream home. Its “not” Complicated – Its Simple – just click here.

Viewed several spectacular ocean view properties in Montecito this week!

The first is an estate which boasts a prime location – with Oprah as a neighbor. Buy this home and perhaps one day you will be invited to attend one of Oprah’s exclusive events!

Of course another reason to buy the property is to own a piece of history. Built for a prominent Chicago family circa 1930, this authentic Dutch Cape has impeccable craftsmanship & details with views that are breathtaking  – from the awe-inspiring mountain views above the reflecting pond to the magnificent ocean views in the opposite direction. There are plenty of bedrooms and baths in this manse however NO kitchen.  That’s right – the kitchen/ family room wing is under restoration and yet to be determined until the new buyer steps in.  However, due to its superior location and the incredible grounds with 3.5 flat acres (a rare Montecito offering) it is still a pretty good investment  – offered at $19,500,000.

Now if you want an estate that already has a kitchen AND a beautiful one at that, then you should have a look at a wonderful offering on Picacho Lane.  This luxuriously appointed Mediterranean has unsurpassed quality throughout and fantastic grounds with panoramic views of the mountains and ocean, a sparkling pool,  fabulous pool house, tennis court, lush lawns and children’s play area. Many recent renovations have gone into this quintessential Mediterranean classic with no expense spared.

Offered at $18,995,000 – this in my opinion, is the best estate currently on the market in Montecito!

Housing starting to show a recovery in Santa Barbara and Montecito? Some indicators sure do point in that direction. Existing home sales increased in July by 7.2% – this is the biggest single month increase on record. Two additional impressive items of note – July pending home sales increased to a 2 year high and home prices have also shown an increase. On a national level, home prices showed their first quarterly increase in 3 years. It seems that the demand for housing is starting to rise again. According to the National Association of Realtors the inventory of unsold houses rose 7.3% nationwide in July. However, in California the levels of unsold homes decreased to a 3.9 month supply vs 6.9 months one year ago. This is far below the long-run average.

As far as on the local level which includes the real estate market for Santa Barbara, Montecito, Summerland, Carpinteria, and Goleta, we are in the 2^nd consecutive month for 80 closed escrows for houses & PUDs(planned unit developments). This has not happened since August 2007. We have also seen the highest median price in the last 6 months with July’s median sales price at $885,000. Another positive note is that the last 2 months number of sales is almost equal to the 5 year average in both months so although it may be too early to tell if we are coming out of this housing downturn it certainly seems we are going in the right direction. I will be viewing Montecito oceanfront properties tomorrow and report back on those.

The Santa Barbara real estate market has proven itself through good markets and bad, that the old real estate tenet of , Location, Location, Location is still enforce!! The Santa Barbara properties market continues to out perform most markets in the US and the world for that matter. Just review many of our “Santa Barbara properties outlook” post on this site for proof.  Santa Barbara area homeowners are thankful for these facts. With all the negative national press about real estate, it is still a local phenomenon.

Althought the Santa Barbara real estate market will see little of it, not much detail has emerge from the Treasury department about $50 billion housing rescue plan, which has caused the big banks to temporarily halt foreclosures. J.P. Morgan Chase announced it would stop foreclosure proceedings, through March 6, “we will not add any new owner-occupied residential loans foreclosures that are held by JP Morgan Chase.” as reported by Diana Olick of CNBC and excerped here.

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit committed to virtually the same Wednesday, before the House Financial Services Committee, and issued this statement, extending their foreclosure hold offs to March 12th. “Today’s announcement expands on Citigroup’s current foreclosure moratorium in where Citigroup does not initiate or finish a foreclosure sale on any eligible borrower where Citigroup owns the mortgage, the borrower seeks to stay in the home, which is their primary residence, is working in good faith with Citigroup and has sufficient income for affordable mortgage debt.”

JP Morgan also says it will stop on loans they hold, but Citigroup is only acting on Citigroup owned loans. One of the largest impediments to foreclosure mitigation is the fact that most loans are held by outside investors. Which actually could be the blessing in disguise.

As for any new details on Geithner’s new plan, except for a haandful at the Treasury, none can expand on the recent leak that it would involve some sort of standard modification process that the government (read “US Taxpayers”) would subsidize.

But on top of all that rhetoric, came the announcement from the “Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)” along with the “Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS)”. These are the ones who gave a report in December on re-default rates on mortgages that had been modified (nearly 50-60 percent!) that gave everyone a harsh reality check, that this yet again, poorly supervised or hastily put together program, simply forestalls the inevitable, and at taxpayers expense. And now because of all that concern, they are expanding their data, which, as we’ll see, is more wasted resources. Ultimately the market will prevail with or without programs paid by taxpayer money to manipulate it.

John Dugan, Director of the OCC said, “I’m hopeful that the numbers we collected already and the numbers we collect in the future, will help this going forward”. Unfortunately, statistical analysis is always in hindsight and only tells us if a program has worked or not, based on whose analyzing the data, and does nothing to ensure the program will wok at all, particularly in the case of brand new programs with no history of success or failure. So, by the time we figure out if any of this has worked, what’s done will be done, and we’ll have great detailed analysis of how clever we were to have paid to much for the program, and the added bonus of paying too much for the analysis of same. 

 ”We’ll then take the new categories and for each, figure out what was the re-default rate in each of those categories,” Dugan explained. This data of course would be very helpful to the government bean counters crafting a massive mortgage modification plan, and of course to homeowners who might otherwise rely on their own resourcefulness and help themselves out of their situation, but might now be induced to sit and wait for government entitlements, “expecting” to be saved by government, or worse, become resourceful in manipulating the goverment program itself, which has already been evidenced. (Didn’t Democratic Icon John Kennedy say “Ask not what your Country can do for you, ask what you can do for your Country. One of the greatest statement of US citizen’s right to self determination. What happened to that once prevalent American sentiment? The presumption that government needs to protect us from ourselves.) And of course in perfect harmony with this perfect storm of preposterous government, Mr. Geithner won’t get those stats until long after he’s announced his hastily constructed social mortgage plan. Dugan, however, assured, “I know for a fact they’re taking re-defaults into serious consideration.” Re-defaults we know are simply forestalled foreclosures that happen anyway, but only after the US taxpayers subsidize the stalling process, which in turn delays that housing inventory from becoming a performing asset, which of course is ultimately what the economy needs to be normalized.

The Santa Barbara Association of Realtors recently held its Real Estate & Economic Review & Forecast for the Santa Barbara real estate market at the Montecito Country Club. This review of the recent Santa Barbara Real Estate market dynamics, including the luxury real estate market, shows the median price has come down over the last 12 months, yet upon an analysis of past years, the 2008 median price is higher than the median price of 2004. The recent increase in number of sales at the lower end of the Santa Barbara Real Estate market has had a downward effect on the median price. However, looking at the 10 year period from 1996-2005, there was an amazing 303% increase in the median sale price of homes in Santa Barbara real estate market!  Santa Barbara Real Estate has proven to be an excellent long term investment. Historically it has doubled approximately every 10 years, so to buy now when we have just experienced a short term median price correction may be the smart move particularly in light of recent historically low mortgage rates which cannot last forever.

 Looking at the Montecito Estate market in the $2,000,000 – $4,000,000 price range there are currently 43 active homes for sale with 4 in escrow. This is a 10 month + supply. A 6 month supply of homes for sale is considered a balanced market for buyers and sellers with less being a seller’s market and more translating to a buyer’s market. Thus, this 10 month supply of Montecito Homes for sale currently offers some tremendous opportunities for buyers. Again, add to that the historic low interest rates and it may very well be the most opportune time to buy a Montecito Estate! Indications are it is now a Montecito Buyer’s Market! Historically, a rare occurrence.

With little press attention about this, as doom and gloom continues to remain the media focus, this appreciation rate is a testament to the stability of the Santa Barbara Real Estate Market and the desirability of our area for primary homes, luxury real estate, vacation homes, and investments. While many places in the country saw large decreases in property values, the Montecito Estate Market continues proving to be a solid investment.  Any homeowner or investor would be hard pressed to find such an increase in property value for this past year. Santa Barbara Real Estate remains desirable and why wouldn’t it – we have ideal weather, breathtaking scenery, pristine beaches, fine dining, theatre, golf, boating, polo, wine tours, international appeal, and so much more. Whether vacation destination, primary residence, second home or pure investment, Santa Barbara is a proven prime choice for the old real estate adage of location, location, location!