Home Sales Totals Higher, Supply Lower So Far in 2026

As the Summer market dawns, the vibrancy and continued recovery of the Manhattan Beach real estate market shows up again in some new data.

We were looking at some internal market tracking data, and noted that the pace of escrows for our mid-June report was typical, or a tad slow. But inventory was low, too. 

Even a decent sales pace with lower inventory will show up in some market-movement stats. 

The best measure is "months of supply," which incorporates both kinds of data. Here's our latest chart, and we'll explain terms more below.

As of the end of May, our local market had only a 2.7 month supply of homes on market. The figure has not been this low since 2022, as the hyperactive covid market ended. Before covid, the "months of supply" figure had only been this low briefly once in more than 10 years.

Truly, you look at the whole of that 10-plus-year chart, and you see months of supply mostly in the 3-4 months-plus range. This 2.7 month figure stands out as low. 

Keep in mind, this is no flash-in-the-pan figure. It's a 6-month rolling average, so it reflects a longer-term trend. (Data for individual months is too noisy to display.)

Quick refresher: The measure "months of supply" takes into account the pace and number of homes going into escrow, and estimates how long it would take to sell every listing active on the market. (That's what the number of months means.) Analysts used to say that 6 months of supply signified a buyers' market, but 4 months of supply is now more associated with "buyers' market" conditions. 

So we're nowhere near a buyer's market here, using either 4 months or 6 months as the standard.  

We're more obviously in a supply-constrained seller's market at 2.7 months of supply.

Ask a local buyer. At several market tiers, they'll roll their eyes and say, "Tell me something I didn't know."

But these data do not purely result from a buyers snapping up the few available properties. 

See our next chart.

Here, we're looking at the number of closed sales in rolling 3-month periods. And we're looking at a shorter period of time, just since early 2023. 

In these three-plus years, there has been no figure higher than the 108 sales recorded for the 3 months ending in May 2026. 

Last year at this same point, there were only 90 sales for the 3 months ending in May.

But wasn't that in the immediate wake of the tragic LA County wildfires? It was. 

We've reported several times, starting in February, that 2026 is busier than 2025 was in Manhattan Beach. But we know it sounds counterintuitive, which is why we produce charts, instead of just words. 

Part of what's happening is that listings are selling faster. That translates to a lower inventory overhang, and a lower median days-on-market figure among listings that go under contract. (The median is 9 days right now in MB.) 

As noted above, we're in Summer now, a time when things tend to slow down a bit. Listings need a little more seasoning to find buyers, and fewer sellers even choose to list at this time. That's some of the surprising seasonality in the local market. (The best explanation: "everybody's gone.")

But with plenty of hungry and frustrated buyers on the sidelines, waiting for the right house to pop up, Summer might not be so sleepy after all.