Can Anyone Find a House for Sale in Santa Barbara?

HUNTING HOUSING:  On the way home the other night, I ran into a neighbor jogging down Valerio Street. Naturally, we had to do the COVID catchup. You vaccinated? he asked. You doing okay? I asked him back. All the usual. He and his wife, it turns out, had been hoping to break into the housing market, which it turns out is like trying to windsurf a tornado. They recently put in a bid for an attractive fixer-upper on the Westside — no, not the Alta Baja Mesa or any of those other gloppy real estate euphemisms — in need of some serious infrastructure work. The list price was $960,000.

They also had to sell themselves to the seller, who wanted to make sure the new buyer would be a good fit for the neighborhood. When my neighbor — a conscientious soul — showed up to the beauty pageant, there were about 30 others on hand to do the good-neighbor booty shake as well. 

Ultimately, all was for naught. The house sold for $1.3 million, nearly $400,000 above the asking price. The top two bidders included provisions indicating they’d pay a few thou over whatever the top bid was. After exchanging fist bumps and elbow taps, we went our ways, both humming, strangely enough, Elvis Costello’s “All This Useless Beauty.”