It's time for one of our twice-monthly updates on the Manhattan Beach real estate market.
We'll take note, first of all, of some discounts sellers took. Yes, discounts from list price are so rare as to qualify as front-page news.
One was at 1801 Palm (5br/5ba, 3900 sqft.), a corner-lot house on one of the…
It's time for one of our twice-monthly updates on the Manhattan Beach real estate market.
We'll take note, first of all, of some discounts sellers took. Yes, discounts from list price are so rare as to qualify as front-page news.
One was at 1801 Palm (5br/5ba, 3900 sqft.), a corner-lot house on one of the truly great streets of the Tree Section more or less in the Martyrs neighborhood.
Listed early this year at $3.150M, it lingered. If you're nearly alone in this market, with a big house in a good location, you might nearly panic as the DOM tick upwards, as they did here – reaching 67 DOM, officially, before a deal was made. (It was about 6 weeks on-market plus some time in "backup offer" status, which tolls DOM also.)
The final sale price, posted this period, was $2.900M – a solid 8% off (and $250K down) from the start price. They had never made a formal price reduction, but just took less.
There were echoes of the last time 1801 Palm sold. It launched in 2011 (vastly different times, y'know?) and ran 267 DOM before solidifying a deal. Then, the start price was $2.299M and the sold price "just" $2.100M in Feb. 2012. Interestingly, that was also about the same markdown from how the sellers had penciled it out – 9% off the start. The consistent discounts, despite the location and pure size, have something to do with the broken-up, multi-level layout, we'd hazard. But it's still got plenty of charms once you find the right number.
Then there was the Mediterranean townhome at 3101 Alma (3br/4ba, 1870 sqft.). This 10-year-old TH with some ocean views from the front balcony was touted as "better than new" in the listing. OK.
As the listing launched at $2.395M, it didn't look wildly out of line given some recent sales in the area at $2.2M-$2.5M. Some townhomes on the east side of Alma had even hit the 3's. Why not $2.4M here?
But we heard instant reactions from fellow agents to the effect that this was a no-go near $2.4M. (We have to be discreet how we share that stuff while a listing is live; how we counsel clients and how we blog here has to be a bit different.)
Alas, the closed sale came in quite a bit lower: $2.150M. That's a solid chop of 10% from list.
So you see, it can happen. Sellers can get too ambitious and can make that one mistake we all tell sellers you can possibly make in this market: Overpricing.
However, these were pretty much the only notable discounts out of more than 20 sales to post in this period, so it's not exactly an epidemic of overpricing here in MB these days.
Last point, one we've kind of noted in posts on the blog already: The fact that the latter part of April 2015 will go down as a turning point for Oak Ave. in the Tree Section.
In this brief period of time, 3 sales of smaller, older homes all closed while yet another was auctioned off – all hitting the $1.3M-$1.4M+ range. Wow. (The auctioned home, 2701 Oak (pictured) lingers now in the "active" listings with an "asking" price of $1.407M – the amount needed for an overbid at the "court confirmation" hearing this Summer.) (See our post, "Oak Auction Will Get More Interesting" for more data.)
To top it off, location-challenged 1208 Oak (5br/4ba, 3125 sqft.) made a deal in the same stretch.
Oak Ave... hot as it comes this year.
Here's the balance of our market update report from the period ending 5/1/15:
- 56 active listings as of 5/1/15 (-1 from 4/15)
- 49 SFRs (flat)
- 7 THs (-1)
See the inventory list as of 5/1/15 here, or see the MB Dashboard for up-to-the-minute data.
Active listings by region of Manhattan Beach in this report:
- Tree Section: 15 actives
- Sand Section: 17 actives
- Hill Section: 5 actives
- East MB: 19 actives
We're also providing a report on closed sales by region of MB.
Sales are organized by sub-region of Manhattan Beach.
Here's a link to the spreadsheet: "MB Pending/Sold as of 5/1/15."
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.