It's early in the year, and there's a lot to work out here in 2019.
Still, we must note (again) that the level of inventory of homes for sale beginning the year is notably higher than it has been in recent years.
With 84 listings at mid-month, we are far over 3 of the prior 5 years, and still notably above…
It's early in the year, and there's a lot to work out here in 2019.
Still, we must note (again) that the level of inventory of homes for sale beginning the year is notably higher than it has been in recent years.
With 84 listings at mid-month, we are far over 3 of the prior 5 years, and still notably above mid-January 2016 (62) and 2017 (72).
In a way, there's another comparison to be made here to the "sugar high" boomlet year of 2017, versus the simply good year of 2018.
After 2017, 2018 began with 48 listings at mid-January.
After 2018, 2019 begins with 84 listings, a 75% increase over last year.
Trends like this will shape the market early and, particularly, once Spring has taken hold.
Now, let's see what has been selling early in the year.
New escrows in just this first 2-week period include:
3529 Oak (3br/3ba, 2030 sqft.), a custom midsized home that's open, light and bright, but had trouble selling in 2018.
The home ran 6+ months in 2018, even making a quick deal (which didn't stick), but gradually was held back over concerns regarding its location across from a hotel.
It is not at all hard to see what buyers liked about it, beyond the $1.799M asking price. It's a good one.
Meantime, a small corner-lot home (perhaps a lot sale) at 1300 18th, which runs long along busy Meadows Ave., found a buyer very quickly.
That $1.250M start price definitely helped. That may seem low for a 5500 sqft. lot that's very walkable to school.
An almost new (2017) home at 2109 Meadows (5br/5br, 3450 sqft.) also found a buyer here in the New Year.
The listing began a week before Christmas 2018, which, as a rule, would not be a time you'd want to plan to put your house on the market.
(Our recent blog post, "Listing in Nov./Dec. is Tough," found only 7 deals out of 36 listings that came out in the last 2 months of the year.)
But 2109 Meadows did have a lot going for it, and made a deal just over 3 weeks after coming to market.
Purchase price in May 2017: $2.695M. Asking price in 2018/19: $2.995M.
And the 2001-built ocean-view townhome at 125 20th Place (3br/4ba, 1940 sqft.) also listed in (early) December and made a deal here in early January.
The list price was $2.985M.
When the sale closes up, it'll be an interesting comparison to the end-of-2018 closing on another ocean-view townhome at 2816 Crest.
2816 Crest (3br/4ba, 1890 sqft.) was slightly newer (2007) and had very good views that are largely protected over some homes across Crest Drive.
Though it began much too high at $2.890M, it settled at a reasonable $2.475M.
Crest is higher up the hill, obviously, which has two points of relevance to value. Crest's views are pretty magnificent thanks to the higher spot, but a 100-block location will always beat an east-of-Highland location.
These two could close within $500K (~20%) of each other, making them closer in value by a measure than you might see with two SFRs on either side of Highland.
One last sold to note: 816 The Strand closed at $11.775M, down $1.075M from an ambitious start price, but still a very strong number for The Strand.
The market for land on the beachfront began to wobble a bit in the past couple of years, after it had seemed for a few years that only the sky was the limit.
More of a down-to-earth land sale had come in early 2017 at 716 The Strand.
The land-value offering emerged in April 2016 at $12.900M, and it's fair to say people said, at first, "Oh, yeah, here comes another one of those."
Instead, the listing took 7 months at $2.6M in cuts before closing for $9.300M. That was a surprise to the downside.
The talk was that 716 was nearly at the public restrooms (bottom of 8th) and that this fact about its location diminished interest in it.
But 816 is just a few doors north of the same spot, and here you have a sale essentially $2.500M higher (+27%) than 716.
This is where people start saying things like 716 was an anomaly, or a steal, and that you should only trust the newer sale, and "The Strand is back."
We'll see. Truth is, there aren't many undeveloped lots south of the pier on The Strand, so it could be a bit before we see another comp.
Here's the rest of our local real estate market update report for the period ending 1/15/19:
- 84 active listings as of 1/15/19 (+15 from 12/31/18)
- 66 SFRs (+12)
- 18 THs (+3)
See the Inventory list as of 1/15/19 here, or see the MB Dashboard for up-to-the-minute data.
Active listings by region of Manhattan Beach in this report:
- Tree Section: 22 actives (+3)
- Sand Section: 32 actives (+4)
- Hill Section: 6 actives (+1)
- East MB: 24 (+7)
We're also providing a report on closed sales by region of MB.
Sales data, including PPSF for all properties, are organized by sub-region of Manhattan Beach.
Here's a link to the spreadsheet: "MB Pending/Sold as of 1/15/19."
Please see our blog disclaimer.
Listings presented above are supplied via the MLS and are brokered by a variety of agents and firms, not Dave Fratello or Edge Real Estate Agency, unless so stated with the listing. Images and links to properties above lead to a full MLS display of information, including home details, lot size, all photos, and listing broker and agent information and contact information.