There is some positive news with this update of Santa Barbara Real Estate sales year to date. The number of sold properties is up by 16% over last year at this time. The median sales price is down however, by about 6%.  The Santa Barbara median sales price is down by 37% from the peak of 2007 – wow this is great for Buyers! Plus with interest rates being so low, currently fluctuating around the 4% mark, this may very well be the best time to get into the Santa Barbara real estate market and have affordable payments! Looking at the  high end, Santa Barbara luxury market ($2,000,000 and up) this segment is still showing signs of weakness with ONLY 10% of the sales in October being above $2,000,000. There are some incredible opportunities for high end buyers in Santa Barbara and Montecito with some very motivated sellers especially as we approach the holidays and end of the year! Click here to search for homes and estates for sale in Santa Barbara.

Fifteen estates priced at $5,000,000 and above have closed escrow since July 1 in the Hope Ranch, Montecito, Santa Barbara areas. The most expensive one being an incredible oceanfront property in Hope Ranch. It sold at a price of $18,440,000 which was just over 35% off its original asking price and slightly over 21% off the last list price. It had been on the market for 8 months. This Mediterranean estate boasts 8 beautiful acres with its own private paved path down to the beach. There are sprawling lawns, putting greens, a pond, tennis court, pool, cabana, and guest house. View this Hope Ranch Estate. Ten of the 15 luxury home sales were in Montecito with the highest sale being a spectacular 10,000 s.f. home on 2.6 ocean view acres on prestigious East Mountain Drive selling for $13,100,000. This Montecito estate also had a guest house and pool. It had been on the market for 14 months at $15,300,000 and sold for 13% off the asking price. Another high end oceanfront property in Carpinteria just closed escrow this week at $10,700,000. This Hamptons style home was listed at $13,800,000 selling at 22% off its final list price(32% off original list price). It is in the gated Sand Point colony on 1.42 oceanfront acres with 133 feet of beach frontage and a pool. At this point the number of sales in the $5 million plus luxury real estate market in Montecito, Hope Ranch, and Santa Barbara is on pace to surpass last year’s numbers. Buyers may have realized that with so much seller motivation now is a great time to acquire a Santa Barbara estate. You may contact me at patsaraca@gmail.com  or  805-560-9951 for additional real estate information.

Santa Barbara is world renowned for its gorgeous coastline and stunning beaches as well as its luxury real estate. Santa Barbara has an extremely limited number of homes directly on the beach or on the bluff top thus making those lucky enough to own them part of a truly exclusive group. There are just 28 oceanfront properties currently for sale in Santa Barbara. Click here to view them: Santa Barbara Oceanfront. Two oceanfront estates are now in escrow. The first is an 8 acre Mediterranean Estate in Hope Ranch complete with pool, cabana, tennis court, guest house, putting green, and path directly to the beach. Definitely your own private resort! This Hope Ranch Property came on the market in February at $28,500,000 and was reduced to $23,500,000 in June. It went into escrow in September. The other oceanfront estate in escrow is in the gated community of Sand Point. It is a gorgeous Cape Cod style beach home with a pool and guest house on 1.5 oceanfront acres. It had been on the market for over a year when it went into escrow in August. Its original list price was $15,900,000 prior to a price reduction to $13,800,000. If you would like to know the final sales prices of these properties or want further information about Santa Barbara real estate please contact me at patsaraca@gmail.com or 805-560-9951.Oceanfront estates in Santa Barbara have been selling at 50% off original asking prices so now may just be the perfect time for to buy a Santa Barbara home.

 A best buy on Santa Barbara’s beachfront community known as “The Mesa”.  This remodeled 4 bedroom home has lots of charm and upgrades.  It is convenient to many shops and restaurants offering everything from fast food to gourmet from pizza to sushi!This charming home is also near the beach and harbor, Shoreline Park, Ledbetter Beach, Hendry’s Beach, City College, & Washington Elementary School. There are warm maple floors in the living and dining rooms with an open floorplan. The sun light dining area flows to a trellis covered patio for dining al fresco. The living room has recessed lighting, fireplace, and plantation shutters. The kitchen has tile flooring, stainless steel appliances, and island work space area for preparing those delicious meals with fresh veggies from the garden.  There are lots of windows in the main living area with a peek of the ocean and islands! Multi-pane windows create a serene interior environment. There are 4 bedrooms and  2 full baths. The master bath has recently been remodeled!  The tropical landscaping in the yard is full of colorful flowers. There is a delightful veggie garden, a gorgeous tile patio and wall and a soothing fountain. There is plenty of off street parking and a 2 car garage on this gated parcel. Motivated sellers have priced this home for a quick sale at just $759,000! Yes that is $759,000 for a 4 bdrm turn-key home near the beach in Santa Barbara!! Hurry on this one.

Santa Barbara

Watched the Fourth of July fireworks from a magnificient bluff top location on the Mesa in Santa Barbara. This oceanfront (click to view Santa Barbara Ocean Front homes for sale) location is a prime spot for a Santa Barbara luxury home. Plans are in place for a gorgeous Tuscan Villa. This remodel opportunity is a rare offering. This locale has a unique orientation facing south and east over the Santa Barbara coastline allowing incredible sunrise views plus ocean, city, harbor, mountain, and island views. Just steps to Shoreline Park, Leadbetter beach – great for surfing and paddle boarding, Santa Barbara Harbor and Santa Barbara Yacht Club plus restaurants and shops. Also close enough for a stroll to State Street and downtown Santa Barbara. Directly in front of you is a favorite local surf spot, for your own live surfing extravaganza. Watch kayakers and paddle boarders from Santa Barbara Harbor, a regular Regatta of international visits from the most spectacular sporting yachts in the world, weekly sail boat races, occasional cruise ship visits and visits from the USS Ronald Reagan, a state of the art U.S. Naval Aircraft Carrier. You may also be delighted with the appearance of dolphins and whales! This is what Santa Barbara beach homes are all about! Build your dream home on one of the most spectacular view properties in Santa Barbara! For additional details on this fantastic offering go to www.BeachFrontSantaBarbara.comAct now and you can watch next year’s fireworks from your very own Santa Barbara beach front home!

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!

Santa Barbara real estate is seeing great interest yet again especially in the high end and particularly the “specialty” Santa Barbara property segment of ocean view and ocean front homes. The consensus of opinion among the higher end buyers is that now it the time to acquire a Santa Barbara view property or a Santa Barbara oceanfront property as they are probably priced as soft as they will ever be at this point, with the market showing definite signs of revival. Interest rates are also slated to increase over time as we move forward the U.S. government intervention of buying billions of dollars worth of bonds has now ended, and most experts feel this will effect bond pricing and associated mortgage rate to slowly rise over the coming year.

One unique and irreplaceable property seeing vigorous interest is this rare Santa Barbara beach front bluff top property available for $2.7 million on one of the most desirable Santa Barbara oceanfront parcels ever offered.

Another strong sign for the Santa Barbara real estate market resurgence is New York’s Manhattan market is seeing a large push in acquisition by foreign investors for the same reason. The consensus is that the market is poised to rebound and this is an opportunity to buy at a bottom in pricing as reported here http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36033352/ns/business-real_estate/ The Manhattan market has run parallel to the Santa Barbara market in interest level and sales activity over the years and this correlation appears to continue.

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.

The numbers are in for Santa Barbara Estates that sold in the final quarter of 2009. The high end, luxury estate market in Santa Barbara includes the areas of  Montecito and Hope Ranch as well as Carpinteria(lots of oceanfront) and Summerland. There were a total of 7 properties that closed escrow above the $5,000,000 mark in the past quarter. The year ended with 5 luxury home sales in December above $5,000,000. My favorite house happens to be the most expensive sale for the last quarter at $17,500,000. This is an absolutely gorgeous oceanfront home on Padaro Lane. This Cape Cod home – and being from there myself I can attest that this is an authentic Cape Cod style home – is over 7000 s.f. of exceptional quality. This private gated, oceanfront home for sale features an expansive green lawn flowing down to the sandy beach on highly desirable Padaro Lane.  I believe this was a fantastic buy as comparable sales in past years for Padaro Lane oceanfront (or any Santa Barbara oceanfront homes for sale for that matter) have been substantially higher!

The yearly total of estate sales (above $5,000,000) of 26 is just about ½ of the total number of Santa Barbara estate sales in 2008. There may never be a better time to purchase that luxury dream home in Montecito, Santa Barbara, and Hope Ranch (to view homes for sale in Santa Barbara click on any of these links) as the competition for buyers is heated with many motivated sellers in the Santa Barbara high end home market! 

May 2010 bring peace, love, happiness, prosperity and good health to all!

A recent sale of an Oceanfront Home in Hope Ranch reflects what a great time it is to be a buyer of luxury property! This extensively remodeled luxury estate of approximately 13,500 sf with 10 bedrooms & 13 baths on just under 3 acres was originally listed at $39,500,000 in 2007. It just closed escrow for $12,800,000. Oceanfront properties in Hope Ranch are rarely available. This final sales price was beyond a bargain! There are currently 23 active listings in Hope Ranch and an additional 4 in escrow. There have been 12 sales year to date in Hope Ranch – there were a total of 20 sales in Hope Ranch last year so we are running slightly behind this year. With the National Association of Business Economics citing that 80% of economist believe the recession is over now may be the best time to buy real estate in Santa Barbara. There are some fantastic properties currently for sale with perhaps more bargains to be had!  For horse enthusiasts there is an impressive Mediterranean with ocean views from most rooms, charming guest house and first class equestrian facilities in a prime Hope Ranch location now for sale. To view this and other Hope Ranch Properties for sale go to www.RareEstates.com or call 805-560-9951. For information about a privately offered George Washington Smith estate in Hope Ranch please call 805-560-9951.