So far this year seems to be a different story when compared to last year.. Inventory is down by 50% from last year for single family homes in Manhattan Beach and townhomes in North Redondo. I use these two areas as they seem to reflect the market as a whole.... that is upper end and entry level for the beach cities. Last year they both maintained large inventories for most of the year and the market remained very slow. The decline in inventory appears to be because property is selling not being withdrawn from the market. Prices are still negotiable which is good news for buyers. The market is approaching normal something we haven't seen in years. To see how we did  go to: Manhattan Beach and all South Bay Beach Cities Real Estate InfoFor more information on the beach Cities go to Kaye ... 02/17/2007

  In 1888 Manhattan Beach was a pile of sand along the tracks the Santa Fe  RR laid to Redondo Beach. Our city got it's name when John Merrill and George Peck flipped a coin...  Merrill won and we became Manhattan Beach.   By 1902 Merrill, Peck and Frank Daugherty were selling selling lots in the area for $350.00 with $50 down and payments of $10 per month.   Around 1909 eleven women formed a club called the Neptunian Woman's Club of Manhattan Beach.  These women not only started the first school and library in our town but rumor has it they pushed their husbands to incorporate the small beach community into a town in 1912.   Manhattan Beach was almost entirely sand dunes.  The blowing sand caused huge problems for the residents. Sometime in the early 1920's  the developers who were bui... 02/05/2007

  Everyone loves the beach lifestyle!   These are sales for 2006 in Manhattan beach compared to 2005... While the volume was down and the days on market was significantly longer... overall sale prices were fairly stable.  Manhattan Beach is still one of the most expensive cities in California.  ** Data is from the Greater South Bay MLS and does not include sales that were not part of data submitted to the MLS For more articles on Manhattan Beach and the beach cities vistit  Beach City Real Estate InfoAlso visit Kaye Thomas 4 Homes and Move 2 Manhattan BeachAll content copyright © 2007   Kaye Thomas   01/30/2007

 This morning I caught this on Realtor.org  online news update.  After clicking on the link BlockShopper.com I went to the article in the Chicago Tribune and frankly I am stunned.  While most newspapers have their Local VIP Home Sales  articles I think this site goes too far. The site not only provides the name and occupation of the buyer and seller, prior and current sale information and pictures of the properties but they want to add pictures of the principals as well.  When faced with complaints,  the website owner, Brian Timpone, was aghast..  stating "If we take one down, we have to take everyone down."  Gee , that would be a shame Brian. Countless web sites have materialized  in the last few years giving property information to anyone willing to give their name and a fake phone nu... 01/23/2007

In October Gina Doughtery posted a terrific piece called  Buy/Sell Now - Avoid the Rush about buying during the slower holiday time when fewer people were actively looking for homes.  On my other blog I wrote a post October 27, 2006 about Headline News Making Your Housing Decisions that ended with a challenge about what would happen if people did as Gina suggested and bought property during the holidays to avoid the rush?Here was the Challenge:So here's a thought... In Manhattan Beach there are currently 215 single family homes on the market. 70 have been listed since October First. 23   properties have gone into escrow since October First and  18 have closed escrow in the same period.  What would happen if inventory dropped to 136 available listings? That's about a 35% change in invent... 01/19/2007

   Winter:    Not in  Manhattan Beach or Hermosa Beach CA Winter:   January 2007 in Manhattan Beach and Hermosa BeachPictures taken January 7, 2007 at 9:00 am   What more can I say......... For more articles on Manhattan Beach and the beach cities vistit  Beach City Real Estate Info Also visit Kaye Thomas 4 Homes and Move 2 Manhattan BeachAll content copyright © 2007   Kaye Thomas    01/08/2007

Every now and then I check out the local Bubble Bloggers for my area   After all you should keep an eye on the opposition.  I continue to wonder why they spend so much time on something they feel is worthless.  Seems like a lot of work to try to steer people away from a product.After all the doom and gloom I checked out what the numbers are from the MLS for my market ( LA County, Manhattan Beach CA) foor 2005 Vs 2006.  Amazing... Overall the market didn't tank.( Must be some sleight of hand by a tricky REALTOR)  Some areas saw small price increases while some  declined in value.  The major changes were in sales volume and  days on market .    Now I realize that there were homes sold without an agent and some were handled by agents outside of any participating MLS so the figures aren't 1... 01/03/2007

The Real Estate Market must be improving as the local papers and TV news have not had a feature article on the decline of real estate for several weeks.  I've noticed that many recent articles on housing are guardly optimistic  instead of decidely negative.  So I'm thinking the market must be improving.From the Bloomberg News there is an article quoting Wells Fargo & Co. Chief Executive Officer Richard Kovacevich. He says,  that only 20 percent of the 375 metropolitan statistical areas in the country are experiencing 20 percent declines in home prices. 20% out of 375 major areas is not very high... unless of course you are in one of those areas. Kovacevich thinks next year is going to be better. "There's no way that the housing market is going to be bad if you have 4.4 percent unemploym... 12/19/2006

If you are completely confused about the housing market in California you have lots of company. While prices seem to have dropped on some properties others are maintaining prices and in some cases going up in value. This is especially true in the cities along the coast in Southern California. Properties in coastal cities that are on the beach have seen increases on prime location properties. Builders are not ready to drastically drop prices on new construction. New home sales in many Beach  Cities are slow but prices are about what they were last year.The real estate market has slowed down yet only 24% of buyers in California can afford a home today compared to 28% a year ago. According to several articles in The LA Times, in San Francisco, the highest home price market in the United St... 11/28/2006

I think it's safe to say that the real estate market of 2002-2005 was an  anomaly. Rather like Halley's Comet, that only shows up once every 76 years, it will be a long time before we see something similar.  While this was not the first market to see multiple offers and prices in excess of the asking price I think it was the first that fundamentally changed people's views about real estate.The basic expectations of buyers and sellers appear to have changed rather drastically from a few years ago. Ten years ago you bought a home as a place to live. People bought homes because they didn't want to pay money to a landlord. Your first home was a starter home; something small until you could afford to buy a larger one. You hoped to make some money along the way as an added bonus. It made sens... 11/10/2006

The stories continue about the fall of California real estate. Buyers are waiting for the market to crash and sellers are praying it doesn't get any worse. In some areas prices have definitely declined. Sales volume is  off in the last year.  But not all property prices have taken a nose dive…. in fact some properties are selling for some major money to Big Bucks Buyers.  So why are these guys willing to pay a lot of money in what many say is a crashing market?  Guess what… they know something most people don’t.Let's take a look at the Big Bucks Market along the water (The Strand) in Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach, or any beach city with waterfront properties.  Prices are up and up big time!  Big Bucks Buyers are willing to pay  for  A  location property.  In California that means th... 10/31/2006

On October 28, 2006 The LA Times had an article on page 2 that should have been on page 1. Permits issued in September were the fewest since 1996. September is when builders are setting up projects for the spring. This means that there will be a lot fewer new homes for sale in March, April and May which is our traditional buying season.In my area,  Manhattan Beach,CA, we are built out.  New homes are built after tearing down an existing home.  Builders who are still buying home sites are no longer willing to look at properties that are not premium locations. Marginal locations on busy streets or smaller lots are not being purchased.  They are also not paying the prices they were last year for land.  In the Beach Cties this translates to a slowdown in sales of many older smaller homes on... 10/30/2006

  I always keep articles on South Bay/Beach Cities housing and about once a month I go through and review the ones to keep and the ones to toss. My favorite scare articles are from the gentleman who used to be with the Anderson School of Economics at UCLA but is now on his own. He has been predicting a 30% drop in home prices since 2000 and has been wrong every year. But he never gives up.Looking at the headlines for the last four months about housing is really depressing. However I have noticed that the bodies of the articles and the headline are often at odds. This made me wonder how many people make their housing decisions based on the headlines instead of the articles. We are a nation addicted to the quick. A vast number of us get our news from headlines on our home page or CNN. Art... 10/27/2006