Closed Escrows in the Santa Barbara area surged for the second month and brought our total year-to-date sales in at 43% above the previous year.  Our area is doing much better than the rest of California, which is around 23%. And the number of homes for sale is shrinking to the lowest level in five years.  Supply and Demand models would tell us that prices should be rising.  The variable in our market is the number of distressed sales, which still make up about 30% of the market.  Some predict that these properties will have to be gone before we will see prices rising.

Along with 2012 this chart incorporates the sales for the previous 5 years as well. It is not hard to see that the central coast real estate market is continuing its strong growth well into this summer.