With our New Year’s celebrations well behind us, we take a look at how the local real estate market fared in 2022, compare it to past years, and consider what lies ahead for 2023.
First, let’s recall what happened in local real estate nearly three years ago. At the outset of the pandemic, sales initially slowed to a snail’s pace, but by mid-year of 2020, the housing market had picked up steam and properties were selling as quickly as they came on the market. The market’s galloping pace was spurred on by very low mortgage interest rates combined with an influx of people looking to work from home in a place they loved — Santa Barbara and its neighboring communities along the South Coast. This highly energized sales environment ran from July 2020 through all of 2021 and into the first few months of 2022.
The median sales price for houses in 2022 was 13 percent higher than 2021: The median sales price for houses on the South Coast of Santa Barbara County ended up at $2,150,000 for the year; an all-time high. This was despite prices trending slightly lower the last half of the year. By May, as interest rates moved into the 5 percent range and higher, it had become clear that most new listings were not selling as quickly or with as many multiple offers as they had been.
