The South Bay home market has been nothing less than incredible since early 2020. Some might even consider it volatile from a sales collapse during the early days of Covid-19 to the insane run up thanks to low interest rates, and now to uncertainty around the market with sky-high rates and bank failures. It can be debated on how one would classify the South Bay market as a whole, but when it comes to property on The Strand, it is always a wild ride. Manhattan and Hermosa Beach’s Strand almost always sees property value swings thanks to just a few buyers driving the market at any one time. There are very small windows to “steal” a
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The South Bay home market continues to work through the post-pandemic real estate environment with historically low inventory amidst generationally high mortgage rates. While certain submarkets displayed weakening prices in the second half of 2022, the historically low inventory squeeze might be pushing buyers to pay sky-high prices as 2023 matures. I can say from my buyers’ perspective, they are disappointed with home options and new listings to kick off the year. And that feeling is valid thanks to home listings being few and far between historically, however, trends suggest that February is low on listings and we can expect more homes in March, April and May. For this week’s post, I am going to take
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In a home market like California where affordability is at its second-lowest level in 15 years, you know that the South Bay is going to be even more expensive. Currently, the median home price across the state is $671,520. So if you can find a single-family home in the Beach Cities or Palos Verdes Peninsula for under $1 million, then for many, that feels like a huge score. It may seem impossible to find a home in that price range, but they do exist. I am going to share a submarket that still can deliver homes under $1 million, and then run some comparable sales to see if the investment might make sense for you. Redondo
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The South Bay is short on homes for sale. And with Super Bowl and President’s Day weekend back-to-back, sellers have been reluctant to bring their homes to the MLS on weekends with distractions. This has left many motivated buyers even more disappointed with low inventory levels and hoping, praying for more listings as we begin our winter thaw into the warming spring. In simple economic terms, there is a major squeeze on supply which often drives product prices higher. But if you read last week’s blog, you will understand that there is a historically small percentage of the California population that can afford homes amid record high prices and multi-decade high mortgage interest rates. This supply
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The California Association of Realtors last week released their Q4 Housing Affordability Index numbers. It was another quiet release as the numbers represent a big negative for California housing prices. As many readers know, I have committed to covering C.A.R.’s Housing Affordability Index results each quarter because of its unique calculations that help forecast where California home prices may go. Thanks to quickly growing prices and surging interest rates, California homes have seen affordability drop precipitously over the past 12 months. While there are plenty of factors used to determine the health or general direction of the real estate market – for instance, median prices, sales, inventory, or pending sales, the HAI can help tune out
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The past few years have been incredible for Palos Verdes home prices. Buyers fled to the suburbs during the Coronavirus pandemic making The Hill one of the hottest real estate pockets in all of Los Angeles, especially the prime submarkets. One of those white-hot submarkets was the ever desirable Lunada Bay in Palos Verdes Estates. Lunada Bay is hard not to love thanks to its little downtown, spacious property lots, and intoxicating blufftop views with hidden surf spots…even the beach boys sang about “Lunada Bay/P.V.” in their Surfin’ USA demo song (fun fact). Now that the work-from-home, stay-at-home, do-everything-at-home days are behind us, along with mortgage rates more than doubling, Lunada Bay is coming back down
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February is Black History Month. This is a time to honor African Americans and raise awareness of black history – especially a celebration of achievements. It is also a time to bring awareness. In past years, I have focused the blog on a timeline of housing rights victories in southern California, along with racist deed restrictions that plagued our South Bay housing market in the years of its founding. If you are interested in some of these past posts, please reference a couple of the links below: “Black Lives Matter: A Glimpse Into Local Real Estate History” “2022 Black History Month: South Bay Real Estate” Both of these posts are resources for you to learn more
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The topic for this week is a fun one – East Manhattan Beach land sales. I find this an important subject because these sales can demonstrate the aggressiveness of developers or future custom-built homeowners in a specific neighborhood. It is a bet on the future based on past sales, construction costs, and supply. While much of what we can conclude from land sales is still very much speculation, it is a valuable exercise to conduct for parties interested in building or purchasing new construction homes. East Manhattan Beach is relatively easy to breakdown thanks to its fairly simple layout as a giant rectangular grid and focusing on its majority of 7,500 sq. ft. lots. Below we
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As we hit our stride in 2023, I am excited to get back to covering some micro-market happenings in the South Bay home market. The past two months, the blog’s focus has revolved around big data, forecasts, and fourth quarter performance. If you are just discovering the blog or missed the last few prints, then here are some highlights below for you to catch-up… “The Best (and Worst) performing South Bay Home Markets of 2022” Always an interesting read to see which submarkets crushed it and which ones underperformed. It might surprise you! “South Bay Real Estate: 2023 Fearless Predictions” My annual post that gets the most clicks, by far, then any other blog topic. Readers
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For a real estate data geek, I love end of quarter statistics in our South Bay home market. The end of Q4 is my favorite because we get to also look at full-year comparisons as we begin the new year. Numbers do not lie, and this new batch of data is eye opening to say the least. We are really seeing the effects of sky-high interest rates cool our local home market significantly. In short, the numbers are ugly. This could be an early sign that we are in for a tough home market in 2023. That, at least, is my humble interpretation of the stats from Q4 over Q4, along with 2022 over 2021. Additionally,
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