If you want more info on Santa Barbara real estate go here:
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Santa-Barbara_CA?source=web

There are some townhomes in the $300,000 range. Small, poorly situated, single family homes are more like $400.000. Half decent ones are more like $600.000 to $800.000. Nice homes are a mil or two. Pulling enough $$$ out of a storage locker to buy a home here would take a miracle.

There is quite a contrast between the "mock" tension and petty arguements seen between the show characters on tv, and the casual, friendly and sometimes humorous banter at the actual auctions that I have been at with them. There did not appear to be any actual tension between Darryl and his son.

The third time I ran into them was in Montebello. Even though the characters bought about 12 lockers collectively; none of those made it into the season finale. Must have been the usual lacker (typo intentional) blend of trash and ordinary items.
At one point, Barry was wearing blinders like some people use for sleeping. On camera, he put them over his eyes and said, " I might as well bid on this locker blind. Where is it anyway?"
Off camera, he moved them onto his forehead, walked around the corner from the "action" and leaned against the wall right between Darryl and his son. One of the wiseguys in the crowd said, " There's Barry, right between the Sheets" .

I outbid Barry for one 5x10 unit at $750. It had over 2000 DVDs, which would have been good if they hadn't all been bootlegs. Fortunately there was some other saleable stuff, so I might break even.

I have been at three auctions in the last three months where Storage Wars was being filmed.

The first was in Westminister in Orange county. The first locker there, had a chair by the door with a framed poster of James Dean sitting on it. Jarrod outbid me at $700. I was at the front of the crowd, directly in front of Dan Datson. Jarrod was off to my right about 10 foot away.

This locker appeared on the show. Its the one where Jarrod found a Chinese bone replica of an ancient
earthquake sensor. On the show the Dean poster is facing away. I am not in the scene. Someone else is bidding against Jarrod and the locker "sold" for $750.

So a real auction on a real locker, but apparently re-shot the next day. Most likely to avoid having to pay for the use of James Dean's likeness.