The Santa Maria-Santa Barbara area secured the number one spot on the Wall Street Journal’s Emerging Housing Markets list for this quarter. Normally, these rankings fall in line with reasonable home prices and overall affordability — not common descriptors of Santa Barbara and a surprising boost for Santa Maria. This area has brought about a high demand from international homebuyers, who make up 3.3 percent of Santa Maria-Santa Barbara’s listing viewership, the report indicated. Santa Maria balances out Santa Barbara in this way to produce a vast portfolio of properties — tying two contrasting markets together to secure first place. For more information, see The Wall Street Journal’s full Emerging Housing Markets Index here.

Source: Wall Street Journal February 04, 2024 00:36 UTC