sales data

At all price points, you notice that buyers aren't necessarily paying what sellers are asking these days.

Indeed, some sellers shot so high, it took a long time and deep cuts to get their homes sold. Here's a selection of closed sales where the final toll was much lower than the start price:

1201 Oak (2br/4ba, 2170 sqft.) is something of a duplex in a challenged location near MB Blvd. and across from commercial properties.

That's not to say that the inspired Craftsman-style home lacked charm, but it's hardly a "down the middle" mainstream house. It was owned by singer-songwriter Graham Nash (as famously noted in this LA Times story, among other media).

The listing began in March at $2.350M, and you could reasonably say: Why?

There were 2 sizable price…

New spec construction in the Sand Section doesn't happen often. The spec market focuses on the suburban Tree Section and East Manhattan.

[Side note: Sand Castle construction for prizes happens this Sunday. See this DigMB story or the end of this post for more.]

In the past year, we count only 4 closed sales of new construction in the Sand Section. (It's 11-12 in the Trees over the same span.)

This week, we saw 2 of those 4 new homes close on the same day:

516 4th (5br/6ba, 4300 sqft.) is a spacious, fairly glamorous, white, bright and open "Plantation Chic" home in the quiet South End.

There's a welcoming, open living room on the entry level, opening to a covered patio and picket-fenced yard. The middle level has no walls except those surrounding a…

It has been a while since we spoke specifically here on the blog to inventory levels. Let's try showing, before telling:

We had to adjust the top end of the scale (again) to make room for the recent-record number hit in mid-July: 133 homes for sale in Manhattan Beach. (After we closed data for this report, inventory temporarily hit 135.) 

One year prior, there were 71 homes for sale. So this year, while it's not double that level, it's close: 87% higher.

But there is a brighter side here. The sales pace is no longer lagging badly from what was seen in prior years.

In early April, just after the first quarter of 2016 closed, we published "Fewest Sales in 5 Years," showing, with data, that sales were trailing 7% behind recent years if we looked only at

If you're a writer or a reader (hi there!), you might know the old saw about headlines that are written in the form of a question.

According to what's known as Betteridge's Law of Headlines, if a header ends with a question mark, the answer is "no." (Example: A blog post titled, "Do Most People Know Betteridge's Law of Headlines?")

But here at MBC, we like toying with tradition. Defying expectations. Mixing it up.

And so it was with our headline on a December post about the "Manhattan Pointe" condo complex east of Aviation Blvd.: "Big Bump Coming at Aviation Place?"

Then, most definitively, our predicted answer to the question was, "Yes." A "big bump" was coming.

There had been no sales at all in the 28-unit complex of row-house-inspired townhomes…