18 Months Later, It Was Worth 17% Less

We don't witness many cases of sellers losing money on Manhattan Beach homes. But it can, and does, happen.

The latest is one that was easy to see coming. It's 1500 2nd (4br/3ba, 1609 sqft.), a nice corner-lot remodel on a half lot near Pennekamp and Mira Costa. 

It had been listed since October last year at prices below acquisition. It was only going to be a matter of degree – how far under would it eventually close?

The answer is: 17% under acquisition.

Here's a chart to catch up on the recent history.

Follow the money bags on this one. 

The outgoing seller was a buyer in Feb. 2025, just a year and a half ago. 

The asking price then was just $2.300M, but the buyer had to have it, and went up to $2.635M to get it. That was 16% over asking.

Just 8 months later, they were in resale mode, hoping to recoup as much as possible.

The listing went on and on, and the price came down and down, until finally a buyer came this Summer and got the owners out of it for $2.190M, less than the early-2025 asking price. This came after 169 days of market exposure across 2 separate listings.

Some of these numbers are strangely close and symmetrical:

• 16: the percentage over asking paid last year
• 17: the percentage under acquisition paid this year
• 18: number of months between first listing and latest sale

Not sure what that means!

As the sad saga here helps to demonstrate, there are two ways to lose money on a Manhattan Beach home:

1) Pay too much, and/or

2) Over-improve it

Both types of buyer/owner errors can be remedied with time. Your home will go up in value. But you have to hold on.

We haven't really had notable market-wide price declines since the Great Recession, when the median price dropped 20% over 2 years (Jan. 2008-Jan. 2010). In those days, you clearly saw other evidence of home values being lower, sometimes in evidence from same-house sales (purchased during the runup, sold after the bust). 

The local median price dropped 10% between year-end 2022 and year-end 2023, but price drops were much less apparent on a house-to-house basis. It did not really seem like buyers were getting steals or prices in 2023 that were not available in 2022, although, who are we to argue with data?

For what it's worth, the Manhattan Beach median home price is up 7% since Feb. 2025, when 1500 2nd first sold.

When you look back now regarding 1500 2nd, they had it priced right, maybe a little ambitiously, in 2025, and just got lucky to have a buyer throw down. A buyer's enthusiasm can be dangerous, as we've written.

Once the resale got stuck on the market, a corrosive phenomenon took over. 

A house that goes unsold leads buyers who like it to wonder why it's not sold. Will they have trouble unloading it some day, too? 

The home's flaws are exposed and magnified with time on market. The same home that was attractive, quirky and nicely located close to schools in 2025 suddenly became less attractive, the quirks of its floorplan suddenly a big issue, lack of yard space a disqualifier, and the location near schools was suddenly seen as being on a very busy corner. (Both are true!)

Every home has its price. 

This one? It was very different from one year to the next.