THs

Auctions are fun. Auctions are interesting.

There's now one coming up for a condo at 710 MB Blvd. (3br/3ba, 1675 sqft.), but it's not what it first appears. This auction is also different.

The listing's come-on start price of $1.475M is intended as an irresistible low bid, a screaming deal that helps form a line at the front door.

So, should buyers rush to get in that line? Or wait? Or what?

Frankly, it's confusing. 

This "luxury auction" is more of a gambit intended to drive buyers wild than it is a more "typical" auction.

You might wait till the October 8 auction date, or you might try to make a deal sooner. They're not committed to going all the way to October. The company running the auction swears that most properties offered this way sell…

There has been no doubting the pricing trend on Sand Section townhomes: Up.

They've just pre-sold one new construction townhome on Manhattan Ave. south of the pier for a reported $5M, and now the back unit of that complex-to-be is looking for nearly 6.

Early this year you had 611 Bayview (3br/4ba, 2720 sqft.) setting the tone, coming in with a closed sale price of $4.650M – a case where the prior sale on the same unit was just 2 full years prior at $3.250M, or 43% less.

In context, then, the Feb. 2016 sale price on the brand new, large townhome at 428 23rd (4br/5ba, 2735 sqft.) at $3.745M might not have been too much of a shock.

Even if it was a bit of a shock.

The 400 block of 23rd is a nice location. We've got clients right nearby. This unit was…

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…

For a limited time in 2012, there was an outbreak of sales within a complex of townhomes at Aviation Place – a complex that's not only east of Sepulveda but east of Aviation Blvd., too, and yet still, officially, in Manhattan Beach.

Back then, 6 of the 28 units sold within 6 months. That certainly made the MBC radar, and we wrote it up in, "Hoppin' at Aviation Place" (Oct. 2012, covering 5 of the sales).

From that moment forward, the Manhattan Beach real estate market heated up relentlessly, and none - not one, nada, zilch – none of the townhomes in this complex sold.

It's as if 2012 had been some sort of finish line. The sales were just done for a while.

Well, Rip Van Winkle has just woken up in one of the units to find that his condo may well be…