
Santa Barbara
2022 Real Estate Market Report for South County Santa Barbara
Welcome to Zia Group's annual real estate report for the year of 2022. In 2022, the Santa Barbara real estate market continued to break historical records, and set new milestones. In this report, we'll look at annual home price trends, sales volume, and we'll examine how home sales differed by neighborhood. Enjoy this annual market report courtesy of Zia Group.
Annual home price trend
Santa Barbara homes continued their meteoric rise in value during 2022. When averaged across all 12 months of 2022, the median home value in Santa Barbara topped $1,720,000 for the first time in history. In terms of annual percent gain, median home values appreciated by 15%.
Annual Home Sales Trend
Perhaps the most notable metric in 2022 is the total number of homes sold in South County Santa Barbara. Single family homes, together with condos, saw only 1,443 sales. This figure is down 35% year over year.
Home sales by month
Real estate tends to follow predictable seasonality, with Summer experiencing more sales, and Winter experiencing fewer sales. 2022 followed this typical pattern with two exceptions: 1) Overall home sales were lower than recent years 2) Rising interest rates during mid Summer resulted in lower sales than we would have otherwise expected.
Home sales by area
This annual "sales by area" chart illustrates how sales are distributed throughout Santa Barbara. In recent years, Montecito has been increasingly growing as a percentage of total sales. 2022 "home sales by area" maintained a remarkably similar structure to that of 2021 and 2020.
Median sales price by area and type
Santa Barbara home prices continued to skyrocket in 2022. Montecito and Hope Ranch finished the year with a median home selling price of $4,975,000 and $5,625,000 respectively. Restricted inventory and ever-increasing demand has continued to push prices higher. Note: Hope Ranch has no condos, which is visible on this chart.
Annual median home price trend
Median sales prices are at all-time highs in Montecito and Hope Ranch. Hope Ranch has maintained the top spot with a median home selling price of 5,625,000. Montecito is not far behind with the median price of $4,975,000.
Annual home sales trend
In 2022, Montecito returned to pre-pandemic sales numbers. While significanly lower than 2021, Montecito finished the year with 2010 sales, which is similar to that of 2015-2019. Together with Hope Ranch, luxury market sales were down 47% compared to 2021.
Home sales by month
Taking a closer look at home sales per month in 2022, we continued to see a steady decline in transactions. Surprisingly, no homes were sold in Hope Ranch during the last 3 months of the year. Meanwhile, Montecito enjoyed a moderate upswing in December.
Median price trend by month
Here we look at how home prices oscillate from month to month throughout the year. At first blush, it could appear as though Hope Ranch has wild price swings. However, this is not the case. Because Hope Ranch is such a small collection of homes, any one or two large sales can dramatically impact the average price that month. In general, we find Montecito and Hope Ranch to both maintain relatively consistent home values year round.
Annual sales by area
As we compare Montecito and Hope Ranch home sales, we see that Montecito claims the vast majority of sales. In 2022, Montecito had 210 sales, which accounted for 88% of sales across Montecito and Hope Ranch. In contrast, Hope Ranch had 28 sales, accounting for the remaining 12% of this ultra-luxury territory.