See the 'Median House(s)' of 2016 for MB

Often when we look at median prices for Manhattan Beach, we also want to ask some version of: "What do you get for that money?"

And so it is this year, too.

As we noted in yesterday's post, the median price among all properties in Manhattan Beach for 2016 was $2,075,000, a new high (by a little).

It turns out, two homes sold last year for exactly that price:

2623 Maple (4br/3ba, 2350 sqft.)

This home is on a corner lot in the Tree Section just north of Valley. It was first built in the late 1940s, but added onto and updated over the years.

As such, you could somewhat trace the outline of the original house and see where things were moved, opened, expanded and added.

It's a pleasant family house, neither large nor small, neither ultra-modernized nor dated, in a location that's neither great nor troubled. Gosh, if that's not the definition of a thread-the-needle, mainstream, "median" house in any market, it's hard to come up with a better description.

There's one other that also sold for $2.075M:

1829 Elm (4br/2ba, 2200 sqft.)

This home is also on a corner lot in the Tree Section, although in this case rather than north of Valley, it is just a little bit in off of Sepulveda.

It wasn't exactly updated. The listing description memorably said it was "remodeled in 1972," which is another way of saying, "not remodeled for the last 45 years." But you know how real estate writing goes.

That lack-of-remodeling history is over now, though. The home is a construction site, with exterior walls pulled apart and walls being moved around, etc., in a total re-do. That'll give this one new life.

Since those were both Tree Section listings, we thought to look near the median price to also find representative examples from East Manhattan and the Sand Section.

1765 Curtis (5br/4ba, 3875 sqft.)

Here's an example of how much more you can get for your money east of Sepulveda. 

It's 50% more house than the Tree Section offerings, on a bigger lot.

This listing happens to have been battered by poor timing on the market, running more than 9 months in two listings and chopping from $2.395M all the way down to its sale price at $2.050M. It happened to come out amid a mini-glut of similar East MB listings, and just got left by the wayside to find its level.

524 23rd (4br/3ba, 1700 sqft.)

This largely original gaslamp-district mid-century modern looks familiar: Dave's clients bought it!

At $2.100M, the sold price was something of a discount off the $2.250M start. And it always felt like a pretty good number, given the lot size (3250-ish is notably higher than a typical 2700 sqft. lot) and location on perhaps the best of all the gaslamp streets.

Our clients remodeled where it was needed, improving the master bath and updating the secondary bath, opening up the kitchen to the main living space and modernizing that, too.

In retrospect, that looks like a super deal.