All Blog Entries by Dave Fratello

Maybe you have watched your kids grow up, one day saying something like, "Where did my little baby go?"

Or, "Wow, I just learned something from my kid." Maybe even, "Holy cats, my child just drove me someplace!"

These are all signs of growth, maturing, the passage of time. They reflect right back on you, and if you're at all the introspective type, you get to reflecting, too, taking stock, and hopefully counting your blessings.

That's a big windup for today's news: MB Confidential is 12 years old today. (Our headline sorta gave it away.)

And yes, your blog author here is the introspective type, and yes, he's sitting here right now feeling thankful, amazed, impressed by how much is behind us, thrilled by what lies ahead.

We're busy.

We've…

Because we queued up a topic with some data the other day, we need to update this first.

We noted that total dollar volume, meaning the added-up prices of all homes sold in Manhattan Beach, for Jan.-Feb. 2018 was $104.8M on 40 sales.

The question was how 2019 might stack up against that. We now see that for Jan.-Feb. 2019, we finished at $102.8M on 38 closed sales - slightly better than we were showing in that post.

It's the smallest dip from last year, but only the third year ever that Manhattan Beach recorded $100M in sales in January/February, as our chart here makes clear.

Wait, what's that?

Something in 2019 is better than in 2017? That recent "sugar high" boom year?

Yes indeed.

This year, 12 of the 38 sales were above the median

This week, Manhattan Beach briefly hit 100 active listings, but it just couldn't last.

Just as sellers have planned their listings for this time of year, so, too, are buyers executing on their game plans to make purchases now in our busy season.

We'll be showing our new listing at 2104 N. Poinsettia this weekend, rain or shine, and hope you'll come by to see this Tree Section beauty and say "hi." (Sat. & Sun. 1-4pm.)

Our video this week features several homes new to market, including Dave's listing, new construction at 235 4th, a Hill Section home at 108 S. Poinsettia and a remodel at 2531 Valley:

Some email subscribers and mobile users will need to use this link to view the video.

To plan your open-house tours for this week, use MB…

There's this buzz about how things are slow at the high end of the market.

And by high end, we don't mean the $2M-$3M range, where there are 15 properties now in escrow.

No, let's look at the $4M+ range for a moment. There are 5 properties under contract, 4 from this year:

216 2nd (4br/4ba, 2750 sqft.) is a custom '07 modern build on a corner/walkstreet lot with good views.

Purchased for $4.350M back in '08, it was listed last year at $5.795M down to $5.495M.

A new listing began in November last year with a new agent at $4.688M, where it sat for 100+ DOM.

(If we're honest, almost any listing that begins 2 weeks before Thanksgiving is asking for 100 DOM.)

This one's newly in escrow, although we have some questions about whether it will…