MB Market Update for 12/15/18

It's fun to approach year end, both for the usual reasons (family, presents, goodwill toward men, etc.) and because it means we're going to have more data soon.

Year end means the close of a month, a quarter, a year. We'll put 2018 in a box and start analyzing the data that this year gave us.

But first, since the year ain't over yet, we will look for hints in partial data.

That worry we've all had about the market slowing down? It's showing up in the data.

We ran the numbers on newly pending sales (new escrows/new contracts) for the 4th quarters of recent years.

2018 is lagging.

With 10 of the 12 weeks of the 4th quarter complete, 2018 has seen 49 new escrows open up.

Q4 2018 is short by 17 newly pending sales when compared to 2015 and 2016, down 18 from 2013.

Of course, the pace is way down from 2017 (84 new escrows). That was a sugar-high year. And don't even talk about 2014, with 95 new escrows in the quarter. We're not getting there from here.

If we were to see 17 new deals open up in the last 2 weeks of December, this year would match 3 of the prior 5 years.

But getting 17 new deals during the holidays is unlikely, even with fairly high inventory of 82 listings.

You heard it here first: Q4 2018 will likely end up as the slowest since Q4 2008 in Manhattan Beach real estate.

(Historical note: There was bad stuff going on in Q4 2008.)

Looking at some sales during the first half of December, we note some good news in the Sand Section. A newer townhome with (current) views near El Porto at 225 36th Place (3br/4ba, 1850 sqft.) closed at $2.050M.

The bummer: This one launched at $2.199M and made a quick deal back in mid-September, presumably near that asking price. The deal flopped, the listing wound up near 3 months on market, and sold for $149K less.

Another Sand Section townhome that was struggling on market at 417 21st St. (3br/4ba, 2085 sqft.) racked up 5 months on market and cut $200K to $2.250M, but now has a buyer locked in.

Everyone loves Strand news, and we've got that.

816 The Strand came out in July, offering a south-of-the-pier lot/location and one of the only prime Strand lots to come around in a while.

Woo, that asking price of $12.850M seemed like one from yesteryear, but no comp was south of downtown. (Comps included 1912 The Strand at $11.300M in Nov. 2017 and 1312 The Strand at $10.914M in August this year. Both came with usable structures.)

We'll see where that one ends up, but it'll be one of the bigger stories of recent times along the Manhattan Beach waterfront.

Here's the rest of our local real estate market update report for the period ending 12/15/18:

• 82 active listings as of 12/15/18 (-8 from 11/30/18) 
• 64 SFRs (-5)
• 18 THs (-3)

See the Inventory list as of 12/15/18 here, or see the MB Dashboard for up-to-the-minute data.

Active listings by region of Manhattan Beach in this report:

• Tree Section: 24 actives (-2)
• Sand Section: 33 actives (-5)
• Hill Section: 5 actives (flat)
• East MB: 20 (-1)

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 12/15/18."