Let's check in again on the local real estate market.
Is it a feeding frenzy? Is it ghost town?
Well, according to the data we've got here, October was almost perfectly normal – at least for the last few years' worth of normal.
We're looking at pending sales data here, always hand-counted by us here for MB Confidential.
October had 26 listings go into escrow, exactly the same as last year, just one shy of 2023, and better than 2022.
We broadened out our chart here to show all pending sales for the past few years by month.
The dark blue line for 2025 tells a story of a year that has had its anomalies.
It began with a banger Winter, where demand unexpectedly went through the roof (due to the tragic L.A. wildfires) and Spring listings came out and sold earlier.
Would demand keep up like that? It did not. We traded Spring sales for Winter sales.
Much of the rest of the pattern for 2025 is typical, sometimes a little better, sometimes a bit slower than recent years. (Do you like our helpful labels we slapped on the chart to describe each season of 2025?)
True story: While 2025 has more sales than 2024 did, out of 10 months, we've seen 5 months with fewer new escrows than were opened in the same month last year. Meantime, 4 months were busier this year, and one (October) was tied.
We got interested in how each month of 2025 compared to each month of prior years. This led us to craft a variance chart, which may or may not be "user friendly" for all our readers. But since we have it, here it is:
Here we are showing the difference, month-by-month, between each months' pending sales totals from 2022-24 and the totals from 2025.
The zero/baseline for all of the data is 2025's totals. So when you see all prior years' January/February data below zero, that's actually telling you that 2025 was busier by that much. And where every year's April data is higher than the baseline, that's showing you that 2025 was negative by that much.
One thing you see is how the wild swings end, and the latter part of this year looks pretty typical.
If you track the green line for 2024, you can see easily how this year compares to last. (July-September lagged, for instance.)
We are always comparing to 2024 because that was a "recovery year," and you want to see data that's mostly as good or better to be able to feel that the recovery is still on.
Year to date, 2025 is good on closed sales.
This year is clearly better than the prior two years, with 278 closed sales, almost 20 above last year.
This year also falls barely behind 2022's 281 closings.
As you may recall, 2022 is a hybrid or "transitional" year, because the first half was still roaring like 2020-21, thanks to low interest rates. The music stopped in May that year, so the year is part frenzy and part crash.
Inventory here in 2025 stood at 65 listings by month's end, a tick lower than any of the three prior years.
How does any of this data relate to an outlook for the market?
We indulged some negative themes on Halloween (see "A Scary Time in Local Real Estate?"), but there, we did not look at any local data. We were more focused on what seems a challenging overall economy and environment as we look ahead to next year.
The data continue to say that the "recovery" held on this year, locally, although the narrative of new boom times that emerged early in 2025 is now proven to have been misleading – a flash in the pan.
The fourth quarter is always slowest, but things do happen. Rabbits will jump out of hats from time to time.
We'll keep you up to date on what we see.
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Here's the rest of our local real estate market update report for the period ending 10/31/25:
> 65 active listings as of 10/31/25 (-12 from 10/15/25)
> 47 SFRs (-11)
> 18 THs (-1)
See the Inventory list as of 10/31/25 here, or see the MB Dashboard for up-to-the-minute data.
Active listings by region of Manhattan Beach in this report:
> Tree Section: 13 actives (-2)
> Sand Section: 33 actives (-5)
> Hill Section: 5 actives (-1)
> East MB: 14 actives (-4)
We're also providing a report on closed sales by region of MB.
Sales data, including PPSF for all properties, are organized by sub-region of Manhattan Beach.
Here's a link to the spreadsheet: "MB Pending/Sold as of 10/31/25".
Please see our blog disclaimer.
Listings presented above are supplied via the MLS and are brokered by a variety of agents and firms, not Dave Fratello or Edge Real Estate Agency, unless so stated with the listing. Images and links to properties above lead to a full MLS display of information, including home details, lot size, all photos, and listing broker and agent information and contact information.
