re-listing

Here's hoping you had a bit of time away to refresh and recharge this Summer.

Maybe you checked in only occasionally on events in Manhattan Beach real estate in the meantime. Worry not! We've got you covered in this summary of posts from the past couple of months:

Inventory Trends

It was up, higher than we've seen in years, then inventory was down. 

High point: 141 in mid-July.

Low point: Now. 110 on the last day of August.

See: "Wow, 141" and "Absorption – In Summer? (Big Time)"

Where the Sales Were – and Weren't

Summer began as one normally might expect, with a languid pace of sales, and more listings than the market could handle. But as evidenced by the sharp drop in inventory over Summer, the pace picked up quite a bit. 

So what was selling?…

Listings are running longer these days in Manhattan Beach. Even prime properties seem to linger for a few weeks before offers come in. 

Plus, it's Summer now, a time when it often feels like nothing is happening in local real estate.

What is happening a lot now is that sellers are having their properties re-listed to "refresh" them... to knock down those public "Days on Market" numbers and, achem, re-introduce the property to the market.

Here at MBC, we've said our piece on the subject. We don't like it.

Out of 133 active listings late Monday, we counted 20 listings that have re-listed with the same agent at some point: 15% of active inventory.

(Is 15% a lot? Discuss.)

Possible mitigating factor: Some listings may have changed companies/brokerages

Twice on Friday, we've seen inventory hit 141 homes for sale in Manhattan Beach.

There were 11 new listings within 24 hours, or 7 if you don't count the re-lists. (You don't, do you?)

A spacious Hill Section Cape Cod with some views at 205 Anderson (5br/6ba, 6300 sqft., $8.300M) was the first to push MB to 141.

After one listing went into escrow, it took another Hill Section listing to push us back to this new high: 1033 8th (4br/4ba, 3600 sqft., $3.599M). That one had been out for a couple of weeks in May, but paused for a while then re-listed.

All of this is going on in July, not really a time when people would typically plan to start a listing.

How much is being held back for Labor Day? Stay tuned.

It was somewhat more than a year ago when we expressed surprise at how 1304 Lynngrove was being listed.

The start price: $3.199M.

This, in the "affordable" Manhattan Beach neighborhood of Liberty Village, was a serious shocker.

With respect, on the blog here we said that that's the kind of pricing that can "make markets" and/or "could reshuffle all thinking about the area." (See "Pushing $3M in Liberty Village?")

To date then, there had never been a home sold in Liberty Village over $2M, and here they were shooting past $3M. Wow.

(In October 2015, 1805 Faymont [5br/4ba, 3500 sqft.] became the highest-ever Liberty Village sale east of Redondo Ave., at $2.060M.)

1304 Lynngrove was only in framing stages at the time of its first listing at $3.2M, so