Published September 4, 2026

August Is for Fiesta... and Real Estate!

Written by Justin Etherton

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🎉 August Is for Fiesta... and Real Estate!

Summer may be winding down, but in Santa Barbara some of the best months are just beginning.

August has always been one of my favorite times of the year. We kick things off with Old Spanish Days Fiesta—one of the traditions that makes Santa Barbara such a special place to call home. Schools are beginning to start back up, football and youth sports are ramping up, and if you've lived here for any length of time, you know what's next...

☀️ Santa Barbara's Secret Summer!

From August through October we often enjoy the best weather of the entire year. The ocean is warmer, the crowds begin to thin, and it's the perfect time to enjoy everything our community has to offer.

Our family is soaking up every last bit of summer with soccer camps (all three boys will be at Westmont this year ⚽), day trips to Orange County, and a California State Parks road trip before school begins.

This year is especially exciting because—for the first and only time—all three boys will be attending Montecito Academy together. Ames couldn't be more excited to finally be at school with his big brothers!

🏡 Santa Barbara Real Estate Update

The market has continued to gain momentum.

📈 Days on Market have dropped below 50 days.

🏡 Inventory sits around 3.5 months, which continues to favor sellers.

💰 The median sales price is now approximately $1.625M, up from about $1.485M this time last year.

Personally, it's been one of our busiest stretches of the year.

✅ Several buyer closings
✅ 2 active listings
✅ 2 buyers currently in escrow
✅ 2 off-market listings preparing to launch
✅ Multiple active buyers searching every week

What we're doing to help buyers succeed:

🔹 Looking for opportunities before they hit the MLS.
🔹 Touring new listings immediately—even by FaceTime when needed.
🔹 Moving quickly when the right home comes along.
🔹 Revisiting homes that have been sitting to negotiate the best possible deal.

In today's market, preparation and timing make all the difference.

Whether you're thinking about buying, selling, or investing, I'd love to help you build a strategy that fits your goals.

Enjoy Fiesta, enjoy Secret Summer, and I'll see you around town!

— Justin Etherton
Etherton Real Estate Group

Inheriting a home in California? Here’s what you should know | Opinion

The Sacramento Bee

By YK Kuliev Special to McClatchy Media

When a California parent dies and leaves the family home to a child, the emotional decisions come first. The tax decision arrives soon after, in an envelope from the county assessor, and it catches many families off guard. The reason is Proposition 19. Voters approved it in November 2020, mostly on the strength of its best known feature, which lets homeowners 55 and older carry their low property tax base to a new home anywhere in the state. Far fewer voters noticed what the same measure did to inherited property, and those rules took effect on February 16, 2021.

Under the old rules, which were in place since 1986, a child could inherit a parent’s home and keep the parent’s low property tax assessment with no strings attached. The home could be lived in, rented out or kept as a weekend place, and the tax bill barely moved from one generation to the next.

Prop. 19 ended that, and here is the point families most often get wrong: The new rules apply to every home, no matter when it was bought. What matters is the date of the transfer, not the date of the purchase. For an inheritance, the transfer date is generally the date of death. Any parent-to-child transfer on or after February 16, 2021 falls under Prop. 19, while transfers completed on or before February 15, 2021 remain under the old rules. A house bought in 1965 and a house bought in 2019 receive identical treatment if the owner passes away today. The purchase date matters only indirectly: The longer ago a family bought, the lower the assessed value sits now, and the bigger the potential jump when reassessment hits. Two conditions now decide what an heir pays. First, the heir must move into the home and make it a primary residence within one year of the transfer, as well as file the parent-child exclusion claim with the county assessor. Skip either step and the home is reassessed to full market value.
Second, even an heir who moves in faces a cap. If the home’s market value exceeds the old assessed value by more than $1,044,586 — the figure set by the state Board of Equalization for transfers from February 16, 2025 through February 15, 2027 — the excess is added to the taxable value. In most California neighborhoods, the cap absorbs the full gap. In coastal and high appreciation markets, it often does not. Inherited rentals, second homes and vacation properties receive no protection at all. They are reassessed to full market value on transfer, regardless of what the heir does next. The stakes are easy to see with real numbers. Take a home bought decades ago, assessed at $150,000 and worth $700,000 today. Under the old rules, the heir inherited a tax bill of roughly $1,500 a year. Under Prop 19, an heir who does not move in within the year will pay taxes on the full $700,000 (roughly $7,000 a year). That difference — compounding annually — is often what forces the sale of a home the family intended to keep.

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Read the Full Article Here!

World’s ‘first motel’ up for sale in sleepy California coastal city
California Post
Nikki Dobrin

America’s first motel — the roadside landmark that helped launch the great American road trip — is looking for a new owner.

The historic property in the Central Coast city of San Luis Obispo, home to the original Milestone Mo-Tel, later renamed the Motel Inn, has officially hit the market for the first time in a generation.

Located just off the historic El Camino Real, the landmark is widely recognized as the birthplace of the modern motel, offering travelers a place to park their cars and spend the night decades before roadside lodging became an American staple...

...Opened more than a century ago on December 12, 1925 as a labor of love from Pasadena architect Arthur S. Heineman, the Milestone Mo-Tel was built specifically for the new age of automobile travel.

Guests could pull their prized rides right up to the front doors of their motel rooms — a radical and novel idea at the time.

Heineman, who was also an inventor, coined the word “motel” by blending “motor” and “hotel,” and the name stuck. The motel was positioned roughly halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, making it a natural overnight stop when a day’s drive still meant exhaustion and numb buns, albeit with far less traffic than endured nowadays.

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Read the Full Article Here!

New Colorado River Plan Could Spell Water Cutbacks for Arizona, California, and Nevada

Realtor.Com
Tristan Navera

A federal plan to manage the drying-up Colorado River could have major impacts for communities across Arizona, California, and Nevada.

The Bureau of Reclamation released a new proposed 10-year framework governing water usage from the Colorado River—a plan that could mandate reductions in water use from the "lower basin" states. But it doesn't require cuts from the four "upper basin" states, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.

The government is preparing more plans that require water use reductions of up to 20% from the lower basin states, The Washington Post reported. Longer-term, that could grow to 40%.

Such a plan for cutbacks could have major implications for the communities in those areas, especially Arizona, which would bear a large share of cuts. And it comes at a time when cities and their housing markets are booming.

“The Department has a responsibility to ensure the Colorado River system remains reliable and resilient for the millions of Americans, communities and industries that depend on it," said Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. "This framework provides the flexibility to respond to changing hydrologic conditions while preserving the opportunity for the Basin States to continue working toward durable, consensus-based solutions.”

The government is hoping to resolve an impasse between the seven states over how to use the river, which supplies water and hydroelectric power to 40 million people, and waters 5 million acres of farmland along the river. But potential legal challenges are likely to come.

Crisis level

The Environmental Impact Statement comes at a time when the river and its two main basins, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, are at their lowest levels since the Glen Canyon Dam's construction in 1963.

Persistent drought conditions for 25 years as well as continued development have caused water use to exceed the amount of water coming into the region, resulting in a noticeable drop in the water levels in both basins. The government estimated this month that Lake Powell will fall too low for the dam to generate power by next March.

The 1922 Colorado River Compact governed the use of the river among states, tribes, and Mexico. But its system prioritizes users on a first-come, first-served basis that disadvantages newcomers. That has big implications for Arizona, which has seen major growth in recent years.

In the report, the government noted the rules have the potential to constrain development and growth in the cities it impacts. It could also mean major cutbacks for water for existing residents.

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