Recent sales in Manhattan Beach, especially for the highly coveted “mid-one millions” price point, are getting to be absolutely crazy these days. Recently there were a couple of unbelievable bidding wars on some homes in this price point. One, at 1312 Walnut, was a little 3 bedroom plus office 3 bath home on a nice (but not fantastic) location in the Tree Section. The home was priced at $1.6M and in last year’s market, this would have been overly optimistic. Instead, in a heavy round of “best and final offer” bidding, over 10 bidders pushed the price up to a rumored over 1.7 Million and some say 1.8Million. We will see when it closes.
In another recent bidding war, there were over 10 offers for a 4 bedroom 3 bath home on Meadows right near the school. This home was fully remodeled as a recent flip, and prior to the remodel, even the “flippers” felt it would be priced about 1.4 to 1.5. Because of the market, they priced it at $1.5M and it ended up going well over 1.7M.
Everyone in our office is talking about these sales and the crazy pricing in Manhattan Beach today. Even properties at “C” locations such as Marine, Rosecrans, or near Aviation or Sepulveda are getting bid up and snatched up. If you have a home in Manhattan Beach to sell, now is the time because you don’t even really have to fix things up!
These days in the South Bay, you may be hearing about “pocket listings.” What on earth is this? you may ask yourself. I thought I’d clear that up for you! Traditionally, a pocket listing is one that the agent does not have a signed listing agreement for, but has some knowledge that a seller is thinking of selling. This lack of actually having the listing signed may be for seller’s reasons (they are clearing up some estate or title matters, or they are still deciding what to price it at) or it may be because they haven’t chosen their agent yet or even decided whether they really want to sell. These days, it is also sometimes because they don’t want to sell until they can find a place to move to, since our low inventory situation makes them fear being homeless. Once in a while, the agent may think the listing is “in their pocket”, but it is actually going to go to another agent.
Some weeks, there is nothing to see on Brokers’ Open — it sometimes starts to seem like all the houses are cookie-cutter clones of each other. But this week, there were some unusual (and fantastic) homes in Manhattan Beach! My favorites are as follows:
Perhaps the Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger should come to Manhattan Beach to find her folks true love — according to CNN Money, Manhattan Beach has a median income of $154,860 and has 30.2 percent of adults single and available — they’ve rated it as the number 1 location to find wealthy singles.
