All Blog Entries by Dave Fratello

Sure, the Sand Section is sexy.

People want to come here to live at the beach.

So, if any one area of town is going to see the most sales of any, it's going to be the Sand, right?

Sometimes.

Though the beach area runs the full 2 miles of the city north to south, it doesn't quite get to the point of representing half the sales activity in town.

In fact, as our new custom chart here shows, the Sand Section has stiff competition from East Manhattan for greatest share of homes sold.

We're looking here at active-market sales activity - a snapshot of new escrows opened in the three months of January-March going back to 2015. The data come from our MB Confidential market updates.

Last year, in Q1, 40% of the homes going into escrow were

Here, you can take a look at the newest options in Manhattan Beach.

Below, click any address link to view all photos and property details. We generally feature listings with 3D tours first.

Listings appearing here come from the whole MB market and may or may not be represented by MB Confidential author Dave Fratello and Edge.

Sand Section

417 20th Place (3br/4ba, 2155 sqft.)

From the official description:

"Marvelous, modern townhome with ocean views in a central location. What a great way to get into the Manhattan Beach Sand Section and live well!"

"This home features recently remodeled bathrooms and kitchen, new flooring and an open floorplan with high ceilings on each level. Kitchen features stainless steel appliances, including

Real news now... :)

The first quarter of 2021 in Manhattan Beach real estate did not smash records for sales activity, but it was really good.

The sales pace was notably better than the equivalent period last year, and the best since blistering Q1 2017.

We can compare March to March, 2020 to 2021, and see that the number of new deals inked here in town rose from 32 last year to 46 within the one month this year. But this would also be the first year-over-year comparison where we have to account for the pandemic shutdown that clouded the second half of March 2020.

We recorded only 10 new escrows opening last year, from March 16-31, 2020, against an average in the mid-20s for recent years for the second half of March. There were 26 this

Thanks for enjoying our annual April Fool's prank(s). We'll keep this story up for posterity, but no, there's no volcano or El Porto Piero (unfortunately!).

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All at once on April 1, Manhattan Beach has seen two big news events that could impact the local real estate market.

One was planned, if quiet: Development of a new Santa Monica-inspired pier project 100 yards off the coast at Rosecrans, dubbed "El Porto Piero." (Here's the news at our sister publication, DigMB.com.)

The other, wildly unexpected: The sudden emergence of a small volcanic hill in East Manhattan, at Begg Field.

How might either of these events affect our high-flying real estate market?

Let's consider.

We'll start…