Inventory Is 'Top-Heavy,' But 2020 Has More Higher-End Sales

There's no doubt that the Manhattan Beach real estate market is busy now.

We were struck, though, to see that the vast majority of inventory for sale is priced well above the current median price.

Specifically, 73% of homes active on the market as of July 21 were priced at $2.500M or above. (Out of 131 active listings.)

This includes quite nearly half the inventory being priced over $3.500M.

The median price for sold homes in Manhattan Beach as of June 30 was $2.475M. (That's for 12 months leading to June 30.)

An observation like this raises the obvious question of whether there's "too much" higher-end inventory. Or, perhaps (?) the median price is poised for an incredible breakout when a bunch of those higher-priced homes all sell.

Historically, higher-priced homes simply won't sell at the same pace and the median will likely end up fairly steady.

You can see that in today's pending sales totals. (There are 77 pending sales.)

Take a moment to compare the colored slices in the pie charts. While 49% of active inventory is in green ($3.5M+), only 25% of pending sales are.

Meantime, the balance (basically 3/4ths) of the homes in escrow are below $3.5M.

But don't give up yet on the idea of the median price jumping.

Only 37% of homes in escrow are $2.5M or below. That number "should" be closer to 50%. Otherwise, $2.475M isn't going to stay the median. Not for long.

The single biggest slice of the pending pie (mmmm, pending pie...) is the 36% priced between $2.5M-$3.5M. Simply put, that price range is where the action is.

So we've looked at where we are, where we're going... Where have we been?

In 2020 to date, closed sales look more like a market with the median price near $2.500M.

Check out those slices again. See how perfectly the bottom half of the chart - sold homes of $2.499M or below - hits exactly 50%.

That's how you know the median is $2.500M.

(Nerdy note: We calculate the median based on a full 12 months, in this case leading up to June 30, 2020. This chart shows only homes sold Jan. 1-July 21, 2020. Still, they match!)

Head back up to the top again. Basically half of today's inventory is priced over $3.500M, but you see that among sales to date, only 28% were sold for more than $3.500M.

Still, there is one bit of news in this data regarding higher-priced home sales.

In prior posts here at MBC, we've analyzed this phenomenon of the disconnect between high-priced inventory and actual sales. (For instance, this May 2019 post.)

We had shown that the percentage of home sales over $3.5M has been growing steadily in recent years, as prices rose.

The years 2017-2019 were pretty consistent, with 20-21% of sales at this higher price point.

Year to date, however, here in the COVID-19 market, Manhattan Beach has a steeper share of sales at the higher end, 28% among closings Jan. 1-July 21. Wow.

Remember, we have 25% of pending sales in that $3.5M+ price range. That's somewhat consistent, and also above the ~20% average of closings over $3.5M in the past few years.

Neither figure is near 50%, the share of inventory over $3.5M, but maybe something's up this year... the appetite for higher-end Manhattan Beach homes.

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Below, enjoy a look at the latest $3.5M+ listings in Manhattan Beach. (At the time this post went live, there were 64 active; we can only display 48 within this blog post. Email subscribers will need to view this post online to see the listings.)

Newest Manhattan Beach Home Listings Priced $3.5M+