This is not Debbie Downer's website.
We look at data. We report it. ("Data Dave's website?")
And now we are reporting that the median home price in Manhattan Beach has dropped suddenly and precipitously.
In a time of extremely low transaction volumes, data can do weird things. Specifically...
The median price, which had been at or over $3.000M since November 2021, is now under $3.000M.
At $2.800M, the local median price is back where it was in June 2021.
(All data above are based on a 12-month data set, sourced to the MLS.)
Manhattan Beach's median home price is suddenly down 11.5% from the peak, $3.166M, set almost a year ago in September 2022.
If you want to say you saw this coming, sorry, that's hard to believe.
After all, the median was still flying high at $3.100M, basically 10% higher, in May!
So what happened?
First, we had a remarkably low volume of sales for this period of Aug. 1, 2022-July 31, 2023: Just 250 closings. (One was 3316 Crest at $2.800M, the "median house" for this period – pictured here.)
The average of the previous 9 years was 406 closings in the same August-to-July period of time.
Heck, the Aug. 2021-July 2022 period saw 434 sales, or 184 more than this year's data set.
With fewer sales, you may see more volatility in measures like this.
Maybe the biggest contributor to this sudden drop was the price points for sales within July. Among July's 20 closed sales, only 6 were over $3M. (At the bottom if this post, all of July's sales are itemized.) By contrast, June's 28 total sales were perfectly balanced between under/over $3M, with 14 above and 14 below.
With sales activity more concentrated under $3.000M recently, the median dropped.
The median price is the middle point, where half the homes in town sell for more than the median, and half sell for less. So when you have only 250 sales to go by, and by far the greatest share of recent sales were under the prior median price, the position of that median is going to go sliding down. And it did.
We also noted that there were 8 sales in 2023 between $2.700M-$3.000M, 5 of them in just the last couple months.
Five sales this year were between $2.775M-$2.850M, creating quite a cluster around that $2.800M figure.
Could this median price drop be reversed with a few more sales?
Maybe not.
There are 36 pending sales in town now, with 15 under $3M and 21 over $3M. That is an imbalance that would work to raise the median price. But if all of them closed right now at their last list prices, it looks like the median price citywide would bump up only to $2.900M.
Meantime, 38 out of 55 current active listings are priced over $3M, but there's no guarantee of if, or where, they'll all sell.
We're going to assume for now that it'll take a while to see the median back over $3M.
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Here's the rest of our local real estate market update report for the period ending 7/31/23:
> 59 active listings as of 7/31/23 (+2 from 7/15/23)
> 48 SFRs (-1)
> 11 THs (+3)
See the Inventory list as of 7/31/23 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: 20 actives (+2)
> Hill Section: 11 actives (-1)
> East MB: 15 actives (+3)
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 7/31/23".
All July 2023 Home Sales in Manhattan Beach
| ADDRESS | BD/BA | SQFT | LOT | CLOSED PRICE | $PSF | DOM | START $ | SOLD |
|---|
| 677 19th Street |
6/7 |
5,592 |
9,626 |
$8,770,000 |
$1,609 |
21 |
$8,995,000 |
07/31/23 |
| 1467 5th Street |
3/1 |
847 |
4,849 |
$1,600,000 |
$1,741 |
9 |
$1,475,000 |
07/31/23 |
| 132 8th Street |
3/3 |
1,470 |
1,352 |
$3,000,000 |
$1,973 |
1 |
$2,899,900 |
07/28/23 |
| 316 1st Place |
4/3 |
2,168 |
1,353 |
$2,530,000 |
$1,107 |
16 |
$2,400,000 |
07/27/23 |
| 1437 21st Street |
5/3 |
3,495 |
7,500 |
$3,630,000 |
$1,102 |
23 |
$3,850,000 |
07/27/23 |
| 1151 Magnolia Avenue |
3/1 |
1,270 |
4,852 |
$1,615,000 |
$1,279 |
94 |
$1,775,000 |
07/26/23 |
| 1637 Nelson Avenue |
2/1 |
1,069 |
7,500 |
$1,825,000 |
$2,058 |
57 |
$2,200,000 |
07/17/23 |
| 2500 Pine Ave |
3/2 |
1,299 |
4,480 |
$1,911,000 |
$1,539 |
25 |
$1,999,000 |
07/17/23 |
| 1150 23rd Street |
3/1 |
984 |
6,002 |
$1,780,000 |
$1,677 |
10 |
$1,650,000 |
07/14/23 |
| 3108 Elm Avenue |
2/1 |
823 |
4,481 |
$1,700,000 |
$2,023 |
3 |
$1,665,000 |
07/14/23 |
| 932 10th Street |
4/2 |
2,196 |
7,505 |
$2,715,000 |
$1,230 |
5 |
$2,700,000 |
07/14/23 |
| 1208 23rd Street |
3/3 |
2,157 |
5,007 |
$1,900,000 |
$927 |
9 |
$2,000,000 |
07/13/23 |
| 1002 10th Street |
5/6 |
6,076 |
9,000 |
$8,000,000 |
$1,317 |
N/A |
$8,000,000 |
07/12/23 |
| 1220 9th Street |
4/3 |
3,085 |
6,254 |
$3,350,000 |
$1,133 |
23 |
$3,495,000 |
07/10/23 |
| 1305 Faymont Avenue |
2/1 |
884 |
5,426 |
$1,425,000 |
$1,697 |
45 |
$1,500,000 |
07/07/23 |
| 2809 Oak Avenue |
5/6 |
3,130 |
4,403 |
$4,300,000 |
$1,482 |
22 |
$4,640,000 |
07/07/23 |
| 1500 Faymont Avenue |
3/3 |
1,835 |
5,392 |
$2,575,000 |
$1,226 |
5 |
$2,250,000 |
07/07/23 |
| 412 15th Place |
3/4 |
1,871 |
2,706 |
$2,425,000 |
$1,389 |
87 |
$2,599,000 |
07/06/23 |
| 229 23rd Street |
3/4 |
1,987 |
1,500 |
$3,500,000 |
$1,822 |
59 |
$3,620,000 |
07/05/23 |
| 527 24th Street |
4/2 |
2,106 |
4,052 |
$3,075,000 |
$1,562 |
9 |
$3,289,000 |
07/03/23 |
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.
