Tag archives: housing
Bobbi McGinnis is the current Chair of the Santa Barbara County GOP committee, a position she has had since 2019, after being its secretary and committee member since 2013. She is a first-generation U.S. born citizen. Her parents moved to the U.S. from England in 1949, choosing Santa Barbara as their new home, with her […]
A whopping half of all homes for sale in Montecito’s 93108 zip code are priced over $10,000,000 While I don’t follow March Madness basketball, I do follow the Montecito Real Estate market, house by house, sale by sale, and March was indeed Madness. While an average March might bring 18+/- sales, March 2022 showed strong […]
On March 17, 2022, the California State Auditor released a very important report on California’s Housing and Community Development Department’s (HCD) Regional Housing Needs Allocations (RHNA). The audit was assertively requested by the California Alliance of Local Elected (CALE) officials, a strongly activist group of councilmembers from across the state. CALE asserts that California’s Regional […]
Here they come! If you feel a little confused about what the state might be up to re housing, here’s a handy primer: 1. California officials said the state is 3.5 million units short of housing, a statistic used relentlessly to drive Senate Bills 9 and 10 last year, whose primary mission was to end […]
On February 3, we learned in a public meeting the Montecito segment of the 101 project would no longer have sound walls. The reason was hydraulic modeling that showed significant flood water rise in a major weather event. This was a major shock to the community. We’ve been looking at the project in our Land […]
For those following this topic and Senate Bills 9 and 10, they took effect on January 1. These bills upzone communities by allowing four to 10 units on a single-family residential lot. Just pull your permit and go. Pushed by a cabal of pro-development forces, California embraced densification and “build, baby, build.” The intent was […]
A tony triumvirate of uber salesmen from Douglas Elliman, America’s third largest real estate company, have banded together to form a sales colossus. Local realtor Adam McKaig, who has been selling property for 23 years and founded Adam’s Angels in 2020 to help the homeless, has teamed with Malibu-based Sean Landon, son of the late […]
For one of the longer months of the year, January came and went quickly it seemed. Many lovely days, a bit of good winter surf, and some big estate sales in Montecito as well. So far, this year we are seeing the same low available housing inventory as in months past and at the same […]
Here’s the conversation between California cities and the state government: California (Housing and Community Development Dept. – HCD): Hey cities, you need to build more housing. We’re short. Cities: Oh, um, hey, we don’t actually build housing. Developers do that. You guys stuck CEQA on us, code regulations, and housing elements. Where do we build, […]
If you are moving to Montecito, you are likely doing so for a specific reason or for a few. We arrived 20 years ago to raise our daughter here, among the many generations of family we had in the area at the time, and so we could reset from city life to a more chill, […]
Senate Bill 9 (aka SB9), which we’ve been reporting on since early 2021, goes into effect this week, with local governments across California scrambling to implement ordinances to attempt to protect, as much as possible, single-family zoning in residential neighborhoods. SB9 was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September 2021 and became effective January […]
With nearly 350 sales of homes, estates, and condos in the “93108” this year, we saw many record-breaking transactions in all price points. Here is a short list of remarkable sales from 2021: 10. Monarch Lane: $3,895,000 The sale of this three-bedroom, four-bath home in April broke the record for highest-priced sale of an Ennisbrook […]
Happy Holidays and all my best to everyone out there in Montecito. Cheers to all of those who make and keep this such a special place and welcome to those who are spending their first holiday season living here in town. We all know the real estate market has been hot and it’s still hot […]
More affordable housing is en route to Santa Barbara, as the Housing Authority City of Santa Barbara broke ground on Vera Cruz Village at 116 East Cota Street with a ceremony on December 15 attended by multiple city council members and Congressman Salud Carbajal. The new project aims to aid in Santa Barbara’s fight against […]
As we head into the holiday season, the Montecito real estate market has slowed considerably; as of press time there have been just 39 sales so far in Q4, compared to 99 sales in the same time period last year. Q3 saw a slowdown as well, with 82 sales from July through September, compared to […]
Lovely warm days mixed with overcast mornings and a couple of very chilly nights tells us that we are heading into winter (more rain please). Daylight saving time has kicked in, which is great for the early birds and surfers, bringing light before 6 am. That said, I’m still getting used to darkness in the […]
Buyers today are facing enormous competition for the best properties all over the country, and few places more so than Santa Barbara. To win the best properties today, buyers must be prepared to move quickly and confidently. As Exclusive Buyers’ Agents (EBA), we are advisors and advocates for our clients from contract to closing. But […]
As the weather teases us between hot and cold, and as the first rain falls and the clocks prepare to turn back time, we start looking ahead to the holidays, a new year, and we say hello to a lot of new neighbors. By my estimate, in the past 18 months we have seen approximately […]
Well, it looks like our Santa Barbara summer is finally here. OK, not the commonly thought of summer – Memorial Day to Labor Day – but the secret summer that we locals know, the October summer that often brings the best weather of the year. The islands are clear, the ocean glistens from a lower […]
Canada is holding Parliamentary elections, and the fate of President Trudeau will be decided. Trudeau called the election to capitalize on the liberal government’s handling of the pandemic. But the big issue Canadians are upset about is housing. Trudeau pledged to ban foreign investment in Canadian homes for two years and end the process of […]
