When you buy or sell a home in Santa Barbara County, you probably don’t think about all the other homes that are sold each day around the world. It’s pretty mind-boggling if you stop to think about it. Last year, the total existing home sales was 4.65 million in the United States. This means that 12,739 homes were sold daily around the country. But what does that mean for Santa Barbara County?
The total number of documents recorded in 2012 at the Santa Barbara County Register of Deeds office was 108,159. This number, of course, does not mean that this many homes sold, it is simply a number of how many property documents were recorded. The Santa Barbara Register of Deeds office is the county recording office and is responsible for recording documents that deal with establishing land ownership in the county.
Of those documents recorded in 2012, 33,532 were deeds of various types. This includes common real estate deeds like grant deeds or quitclaim deeds and also many less common documents like an amended construction trust deed or marshal’s deed.
The total number of documents recorded year-to-date in the county is 87,476 (January 1, 2013 to November 12, 2013). This means that, with roughly one and a half months left in the year, 20,683 documents would be have to be recorded in order to be even with last year. Of the documents that have been recorded in Santa Barbara County so far this year, 26,410 have been deeds of various types.
The recorder in Santa Barbara does not make projections or speculations about how future or present recording levels may or may not be indicators of economic success. Obviously, though, it stands to reason that the busier the housing market is, the busier the county recorder will be. Of course, a busy register of deeds office can mean many things.
Last year, 16,834 deeds of trust were recorded. Comparatively, 13,433 deeds of trust have been recorded so far this year. In 2012, the number of grant deeds recorded in Santa Barbara County was 11,098. So far this year, 8,769 grant deeds have been recorded. The grant deed is one of the most commonly used real estate deeds in California.
If you need to purchase a do-it-yourself deed for Santa Barbara County, head on over to deeds.com to see how we can help you out.