Market Trends, Statistics, and Video

Despite a recent uptick in mortgage rates, the California’s housing market continued to demonstrate resilience in February, reaching sales levels not seen since September 2022, according to the California Association of Realtors on March 19, 2024. 

February’s sales pace jumped 12.8 percent higher from the revised 257,040 homes sold in January and rose 1.3 percent from a year ago, when a revised 286,290 homes were sold on an annualized basis. The monthly sales increase was the second straight month of double-digit gains for California. It was also the second consecutive month of year-over-year gains, but the improvement was mild. The sales pace remained below the 300,000 threshold for the 17^th consecutive month. While it is likely that sales will stay below this level in the first quarter of 2024, statewide home sales on a year-to-date basis remained positive with an increase of 3.4 percent, suggesting a better spring home buying season than that experienced last year.

“Housing supply conditions in California continued to improve in February with new active listings rising more than 10 percent for the second straight month,” said C.A.R. President Melanie Barker.  “This is great news for buyers who have been competing for a dearth of homes for sale, and the momentum will hopefully build further as we enter the spring home buying season.”

STATISTICS AND MARKET TRENDS FOR SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA FOR FEBRUARY 2024

86 Homes Sold in Santa Barbara in February of 2023 and 89 Homes were Sold in February 2024

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Will this week’s Fed meeting impact the housing market?

Mike Simonson of Altos Research explains:

Mark Danforth Lomas * HomesOfSantaBarbara@gmail.com * 805.845.2888

The recent ruling against the National Association of Realtors suggests that commissions are now negotiable. For anyone familiar with California Real Estate contracts knows that commissions are fully negotiable because that language is in the contract.

For some reason the real estate disruptors, their attorneys, and the media are telling this story about how commissions are fixed at 6 percent? ( If that’s what’s been negotiated sure. But, its not fixed and is negotiable. There are all kinds of new start up real estate companies claiming they can bring you an all cash offer in 24 hours. What they don’t tell you is that it might be an offer so low you’d never accept it. You might want to do a deep dive on anyone making promises that seem hard to believe. Also, when it comes time to choosing a realtor to work with in today’s market experience counts.

(Land commissions are usually higher as they’re typically harder to sell)