All Blog Entries by Dave Fratello

"If you must write prose and poems,

The words you use should be your own.

Don't plagiarize or take 'on loan.'"

- The Smiths, "Cemetry Gates"

Most people can't write. Or they have other stuff to do.

And yet real estate agents are told over and over, "you need to send emails to people in your area to demonstrate your expertise."

So instead of struggling with writer's block, digesting the latest from the Wall Street Journal, or running real estate data through spreadsheets and graphing engines, what options does your local real estate agent have?

For one thing, they can buy or borrow content.

Little articles. Graphs and charts. General advice for home buyers and sellers (tips for decorating and moving, for example). Recipes.

…

If we're going to read the mood here, it seems like it's going to become a favorite sport of buyers and other local real estate analysts to spot the trend that shows the market is slowing under pressure from interest rates, and so on.

We've conceded, a market shift could happen. We do not think it will come fast, nor do we think it will hit here first. But we're of a mind to show you the data, and not opine too much.

As we said last week, it's hard to keep running uphill. You'll slow down. Depending on the hill, you might roll back down a ways.

But right now, the data aren't available to show that the market is slowing or that prices are coming down. You can predict, but you can't show it.

We'll look at recent stats on the pace of Manhattan…

It's been another busy week, with sellers trying to get buyers what they want... new inventory. There were 11 truly new listings this week, 13 total if we count the two in the Sand Section that have returned, re-listed, with new (lower) prices after brief times off.

See links and details below, and click any address link to view all photos and property details. Listings appearing here come from the whole MB market and may or may not be represented by MB Confidential author Dave Fratello and Edge.

Open house times are listed below, but you can also click "Open Houses" at the top of our site, which displays all the Manhattan Beach open houses. There are also links right at the top to Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach opens.

East Manhattan Beach

…

The local paper of record thought it was big news Tuesday, so they put a front page, "above the fold" headline on a story to catch readers' attention.

"Home sellers are cutting prices," was the headline in the LA Times. The story mixed analytical data and anecdotes from local real estate brokers, saying that more listings are taking price cuts than have been seen in recent years. (See the article here [paywalled]).

We saw that and thought, hmmm.

It might be media hype, it might be premature forecasting, or it might even be the first hints of a truly changing local real estate market.

Because, sure, it would be true, if listings were generally hanging around more, and sellers had to cut to attract buyers, that we could be witnessing an…