Edhat Staff
By edhat staff
Santa Barbara has been ranked the third worst city for first-time homebuyers for the second year in a row.
In the fourth quarter of 2019, 39% of all U.S. single-family home purchases were made by first-time buyers. This year, though, Americans may be conflicted on whether it’s a good time to purchase a first home. While many people have been financially hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic, mortgage interest rates have also hit record lows, according to WalletHub.
WalletHub compared 300 cities of varying sizes across 26 key indicators of market attractiveness, affordability and quality of life. The data set ranges from cost of living to real-estate taxes to property-crime rate.
The top five best places to purchase a home are Henderson, Nevada; Boise, Idaho; Thornton, Colorado; Chesapeake, Virginia; and Gilbert, Arizona respectively.
Out of 300, Santa Barbara is ranked 298 followed only by San Francisco and Berkeley. Further condensed to city size, Santa Barbara ranks 134 out of 135 for small cities,
The median home value in Santa Barbara is $1,134,649, according to Zillow.
Santa Maria was ranked 216, followed by Oxnard at 242 and Ventura at 250. Roseville was the highest-ranking California city at 43 followed by Visalia at 58.
It makes zero sense to me, whether first, second, third time, to ever buy in SB. Way overpriced, crowded. Unless you are super wealthy and can afford a decent size home with some privacy or you are an investor in rental properties [although I don’t know how long investments will do well with what is going on and what is likely to be permanent economic damage]. The only home owners in decent shape – assuming Prop 13 isn’t repealed – are those who bought a long time ago when prices were more reasonable, comparatively speaking, for the time.
Yes, Santa Barbara and adjacent areas have definitely made a turn for the worse over the last 20 years. High Density housing is one large reason. Uncontrolled growth at UCSB and SBCC also haunts us.
Santa Barbara government employees, which is the biggest employer, rake in $150K a year average to start and quickly move up to $250K-$400K a year. That is why housing is expensive- the city government employees can afford it.
See the website “Transparent California” for City of Santa Barbara, County of Santa Barbara and all the local school district compensation packages. UCSB packs students into Isla Vista so they don’t impact Santa Barbara Housing prices and SBCC packs them into beach rentals leaving most residential Santa Barbara untouched.
Houses are selling all over this town. And guess what, they are getting scooped up by those who are coming in from much higher priced areas in this state. Santa Barbara is affordable to those who are now buying from out of town. That is the way it is. Buyers from LA and Silicon Valley can’t believe how cheap local houses are and one gets so much more than what they are leaving behind. There are so many real estate search tools today to comparison shop, that it is silly to claim SB is “over-priced”. Compared to what? However, bargains still exist up and down this state which the real estate search engines can also provide. Marysville-Yuba City are both sleepers for well under-value housing prices, close to Metropolitan Sacramento.
There is really good no reason to live in Santa Barbara if you are young. Mediocre wages, and high housing & rental prices is killing off bright new ideas and investment opportunities from newer generations. Anyone looking to build a future now is looking towards less expensive cities in the Pacific Northwest, Texas, and Colorado.
If you have a job to pay for it.
Detroit does have some amazing housing bargain – try the Grosse Points areas. There is wonderful housing in this formerly great city – use to have the most exclusive residential areas in the country. Homes are still there- but you need to rebuild some of the neighborhood. Which some very smart young people are doing – and hiring their own security forces. The housing stock is too good to throw away.
“Quality of life” is not better elsewhere when your family is here.
Scooped-up by investors that wanna tear down the houses, and put up ugly apartment buildings and charge students high rents…. ps- BTW – It’s already happening
Yeah, my county pay as an office clerk was so big. I made about 30K, with great benefits, after 5 years. I lived well. I usually spent closer to 50% of my pay on rent, well past 30%. But — almost no money spent on heating or AC. Drinkable tap water. Lots of free entertainment. Yes, I had and have family here, that kept me here.
But SB still has the benefit of being a university town. And there are still companies coming out of that synergy, as there have been for decades. A synergy that supports many people in SB County.
If a house sells, it is affordable. To someone. If it does not, the price eventually meets the willing buyer and willing seller rule. The spirit of the market place. Everyone should have been exposed to this basic rule of economics somewhere along the way. Market price is the price established between a willing seller and a willing buyer. It is neither too high nor too low. It is just right. It is what it is. When people stop thinking of this area as premium, the housing prices will no longer be premium. Wait this out or actively try to destroy the place to hasten price drops. History has never shown this to be the case in this town, but with a little more effort we might be closer to becoming a degraded community afterall. City council is certainly trying hard enough to destroy any value added to this town. You can get the same weather in Oxnard or Ventura, so there must be something else that makes Santa Barbara worth its premium entry level prices. What do you think that is? Its ambiance as a small, low key wealthy community. You think? Not really because parts of this town are real dumps. So what is it that commands the prices it commands. Why does it have more hanger-oners that demand subsidized housing when the weather and beaches beckon in Ventura and Oxnard as well. What gives Santa Barbara its premium edge? Try to put this in words.
This ranking does not surprise me. My husband and I have good, steady jobs and have saved up a decent amount of money for a down payment, and we can barely afford to buy a mobile home here. Contrast that with Idaho where we could get a 3-4 bedroom home with a 3-car garage and a huge backyard for the same price. It’s very discouraging.
And that’s just the AC bill during summer months!