The hottest emerging real-estate market in America is idyllic but costly Santa Barbara, according to a new report.
The coastal Californian metro of Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, where the typical home was listed at nearly $1.8 million, was crowned the top housing market in America in the Wall Street Journal and Realtor.com’s Winter 2024 Emerging Housing Markets Index.
The index factors in housing market data, economic vitality, and lifestyle metrics, to surface emerging housing markets that offer a high quality of life, as well as home price appreciation in the future.
Santa Maria-Santa Barbara was followed by Jefferson City, Mo., and Canton-Massillon, Ohio.
The typical home in America cost roughly $383,000 as of December 2023, far below the median listing price of $1,795,000 in Santa Barbara.
Though the city’s price tag is “well out of range for many prospective buyers,” the report notes, it’s still a hot market.
Homes spent 52 days on the market in December, which was 9 days fewer than was typical nationally. The number of homes for sale also grew nearly 14% that month.
About 80% of the online views of listings in the city came from outside of the metro in the fourth quarter, the report noted, with “particularly sizable” attention from Los Angeles, followed by San Jose and San Francisco.
In addition, 3.3% of Santa Barbara’s listing viewership came from shoppers outside of the U.S., “suggesting that international demand is applying pressure to already high prices,” the WSJ/Realtor.com report said.
To buy a $1.8 million home with a 20% down payment — which is $360,000 — the home buyer would need to make roughly at least $425,000 a year to take on a 30-year mortgage at a rate of 6.9%, according to a home-buying budget calculator from Freddie Mac.
A purchase at that amount would require a jumbo rate loan in Santa Barbara County, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which comes with higher rates than conventional mortgages. Ultimately, buying a typical home in the metro would mean a monthly payment of $9,800 or more.
Realtor.com is operated by News Corp subsidiary Move Inc., and MarketWatch is a unit of Dow Jones, which is also a subsidiary of News Corp.
