Manhattan Beach

I wanted to share some perspective of new home sales and new home construction pipeline for the balance of this year, and the next couple years in the Beach Cities. Check out the short video & feel free to reach out with any questions, or any real estate needs!

Happy New Year!

I wanted to share with you the latest information of the South Bay new home sales from 2016. Also, see what 2017-2018 holds for new home pipeline.

Happy New Year!

CoreLogic reported in late December that home buying saw the fastest November in more than four years even though the month’s sales totaled 7.5% below 1988 month average.  The surge in sales increased what buyers paid. Our relatively robust local job market created more job opportunities along with pay hikes nationwide.  Fewer absentee buyers were reported.  Mortgage financing was not used in 21% of the deals.

For full report, click HERE!

We live where people want to vacation. Some Los Angeles cities list as their attributes as several “close to” attractions, shopping, dining and even other areas. But in Manhattan Beach, other than its proximity to LAX, there is no need for those “close to” references because so much is happening right here. Without the pretentiousness of nearby West LA. Manhattan Beach retains a community-oriented atmosphere where everyone seems to get along in a friendly manner. Hot Volleyball, cool water, a town for athletic people, young or not so young- everyone is out walking, riding or running by this is the place to BE.

As proof, here’s the Top 10 Reasons You Should Live In Manhattan Beach:

1.) The Beach. Manhattan Beach does not just have a beach, it has a clean beach. There are no tacky t-shirt shops, no graffiti, no seedy side that taints the views of the Pacific Ocean under a bright blue sky. What you have here is a nice, wide beach that’s upscale, relaxed and so perfectly pristine you’ll wonder why you didn’t move here sooner.

2.) The Strand. This “moving” sidewalk of sorts is the centerpiece of activity in Manhattan Beach and, in fact, throughout the entire South Bay. Because of The Strand, having a bike here is a must; you can ride all the way to Palos Verdes on one end – with Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach along the way – and if you desire, to Santa Monica on the other. And it’s all right along the sand. The Strand is also idea for running and walking. No motorized vehicles are allowed, which means it’s purely people power that moves on The Strand.

3.) The Sunsets. One of the nightly rituals is going down to the beach to watch the spectacular sunsets. Sometimes, the sun will turn orange and the sky around it will explode with colors. Downtown is particularly fetching, with the palm trees on either side of the pier, making for the kinds of photos that, when you share them with your friends, will get lots of envious remarks. You can even soak in the sunset from a restaurant with a glass of wine in your hand.

4.) Friends Will Always Be Coming To You For Get-Togethers. Because Manhattan Beach is so spectacular and people from all over Southern California love it, when it’s time for get-togethers with friends, they will be coming to see you rather than you always having to always to go meet them someplace. In fact, you will soon discover they want to visit you a lot because they like coming to Manhattan Beach!

5.) The Events. In addition to the idyllic everyday beach life in Manhattan Beach, there are also events that stir the locals’ soul. Each Sunday in the summer, there are free concerts in Pollywog Park that are more like picnics with great music. There is Old Hometown Fair the first weekend of each October with its Saturday morning 10K, festival and lively beer garden. There’s Holiday Open House, where the downtown shops open up in the evening to strollers, some offering entertainment and refreshments. But the most spectacular event of them all is the Manhattan Beach Holiday Fireworks, a sensational show on the second Sunday of December that brings in about 10,000 people, all in a festive holiday mood. This being Manhattan Beach, many bring beach chairs and watch while sitting on Manhattan Beach Blvd.

6.) Downtown Shops & Restaurants. For those living in the hill section, it’s a short 5-minute walk to downtown where you’re rewarded with a pleasant, peaceful stroll through high-end shops, great restaurants, classy restaurant/bars and even a couple of classic beach dive bars. No worries about parking or having that extra glass of wine because you can walk back home. In fact, you may find you will leave your car parked on weekends because, frankly, why go anywhere else!?

7.) Beach Volleyball. Manhattan Beach is the birthplace of beach volleyball, and many of the Olympians either live here or practice here. Go down to Marine Street and see where the sport was created. Or just walk to the pier where, on any given summer weekend, there’s some sort of tournament taking place. The “king of the beach” volleyball tournaments is the Manhattan Open, which the top pro players (and Olympians) refer to as the Wimbledon of beach volleyball.

8.) The Escape. Living in Manhattan Beach is like being on a year-round vacation. With all the activities and events, you can put yourself right in the middle of it all, but there’s enough elbow room to have privacy, too. You will also notice quickly that Manhattan Beach is really a small community and it’s easy to forget that the really large city of Los Angeles is all around you.

9.) It’s Close To LAX. Okay, here’s the one “close to” you need to know about when it comes to Manhattan Beach. You can be at the airport, door-to-curb, in 15 minutes. Sometimes even 10 minutes. It’s a near-direct drive and there is rarely any traffic. It’s the most stress-free trip to (and from) the airport of just about any city in North America.

10.) Real Estate. Manhattan Beach residents have a fairly high income but shun the snobbery for a fun attitude. There is some sticker shock to people who first want to move here. We have a mixture of beach homes and mansions. Land is expensive in all the beach cities in varying degrees. Manhatan Beach homes have held their value very well along the bumpy Real Estate market down and up turns.

Manhattan Beach is a classic southern California beach town a hidden gem in the metropolis of Los Angeles, just south of Los Angeles International Airport. It’s clean, nearly always sunny, with volleyballs, surfers and sunbathers. Many dining and shopping options are available and there next to no  crime. What are the best attributes of Manhattan Beach, CA, here is a more complete list.

1.) The Strand. This is a sidewalk, of sorts, except it runs parallel to the beach, from the “90210” house (the one where the TV show was filmed, which is actually in neighboring Hermosa Beach) to 45th Street, a distance of two miles. It’s all at once an outdoor fitness gym for runners and rollerbladers, a social gathering place for people to hang out to look at the ocean or watch the sunset, and a transportation artery taking people to visit friends, go to functions and yes, even to dinner. The Strand takes on a different personality as the day progresses, too: Hard-core runners and surfers in the early morning, families going for morning walks about 8-9, weekend single party people emerging for a little exercise and beach volleyball between 10 and noon, bicyclers throughout the afternoon and more surfers at sunset. It is divided into two sections, one for runners, walkers and strollers, and another for bicyclists and rollerbladers.

2.) The Weather. It’s sunny so often here that on the rare times when clouds take over for a day – or the even more rare times it actually rains – the residents stand with their hands on their waist looking out the windows saying “what a crappy day!” And the temperature? Oh, about 72 degrees some 90% of the time. With no humidly.

3.) The Location. It’s not just the fact it’s on the beach with the Pacific Ocean constantly rolling to shore, It is also just 10 minutes from LAX and 30-40 from downtown Santa Monica and the Westside, Hollywood and Long Beach, and about 45 from some of Orange County’s beaches. So going to USC football games, Laker games or other sporting events is not terribly long and being right next to the airport – with none of the noise – is simply wonderful for frequent travelers. If any place in LA could be considered “centrally located,” it’s Manhattan Beach.

4.) The Fun Food Finds. Manhattan Beach gets little credit from LA food critics for its restaurants, but those people have apparently failed to taste the San Felipe tacos at Shellback Tavern, the pizza at Old Venice, the chowder at Rock ‘n Fish and most certainly the Strand House. Or any of the other great food finds at several of the city’s restaurants. In fact, discovering such treats is one of the great pleasures of dining out in Manhattan Beach.

5.) The Sunsets. This alone could fill up an entire article. Oh wait there is a full page devoted to sunsets on SurfsideSam.com. The sunsets are spectacular anywhere along the beach, from one end of the Strand to the other, and they happen almost every night of the year. Residents stand along the Strand to soak in the day’s final colorful farewell. And how many people in the world get to see a sunset over an ocean? Not many, certainly.

 6.) The Sports. Beach volleyball, surfing, rollerblading and all the other physical sports that people play here really define the vast majority of the citizens of Manhattan Beach. Then there are the competitions – there’s some type of beach volleyball tournament nearly every weekend during the summer – and in the fall, there is the Old Hometown Fair 10K.

7.) The Casual “Play Hard” Attitude. Let’s go back to the last point in the previous entry, the Old Hometown Fair 10K. After that 10K, a large portion of the participants – including many race officials – then go the Shellback Tavern for beers and Bloody Mary’s. And that’s just a warm-up to the beer garden at the fair. This, more than anything, defines the culture of Manhattan Beach. People get in their exercise, then they love to enjoy life. Drinking beers and going to bars is a huge part of their life’s enjoyment. Many of these people are long-term locals, and the live this way well into their 60s.

In addition to the Hometown Fair beer garden the first weekend of October, Manhattan Beach’s fun events also include the spectacular Holiday fireworks (second Sunday in December), Holiday Open House (mid November both downtown and in North Manhattan) and the harmless but wacky Surfest/6-man beach volleyball tournament the ultimate “play and party event” (first weekend of August).

8.) The Bars. Continuing on the above theme, Manhattan Beach has always been about its bars. This goes back for decades. The bars are as much a part of Manhattan Beach’s history as Traveler is to USC and John Wooden is to UCLA. In addition to the dives (Shellback, Ercoles) there are nice places (The Strand Bar, Mangiamo, Rock ‘n Fish), sports bars (Shark’s Cove and Sharkeez to the north), a small club (12 + Highland) and even a great live music venue (Pancho’s). There’s diversity in the destinations and the barflies in Manhattan tend to be a bit more, shall we say, “seasoned” than their younger counterparts in Hermosa.

9.) The Lack of Crime. It’s always somewhat of a weekly cheap thrill to pick up a copy of the Beach Reporter and read the Manhattan Beach Crime Report. Most of the items deal with someone having a bicycle swiped from an open garage or an ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend taking some type of jewelry or other item in a post-relationship revenge move. There is the occasional robbery or burglary and there have been people robbed even at gunpoint on the open streets, but those instances are, fortunately, extremely rare. Manhattan Beach is so safe, walking along the Strand or even on the beach at night is so common for locals they do it without giving it a second thought.

10.) The Cops. As seen above they are not the busiest force in LA County. So when something does happen, the police respond as if’s a four-alarm fire. Cars and motorcycles swarm in from everywhere like a pack of killer bees. The town is small – a mere two miles north to south and not much more inland – so they are never far away from anything and the response time is swift, to say the least.

Location: Starts at Homer Street on the South, and 45th on the North

Strand Lots

• Manhattan Beach Strand is the small, beach front section of the Manhattan Beach Real Estate. It has some of the most expensive homes for sale. These homes are on narrow lots that occupy about 25 feet of Manhattan Beachfront property that runs parallel to the coast.
• Strand lots are 33.3 x 100 or 33.3 x 105

(more…)

Location: West of Sepulveda Blvd., North of Manhattan Beach Blvd. east of Bell Ave., Blanche Rd. and Ardmore Ave., South of Rosecrans Ave.

• Predominantly single family homes.
• Newer homes in the 3,200-3,700sf range
• Original homes in the 1,200-1,800sf range

Lot Size:

• Most lots are 40’ wide, and the length varies: 108’, 112’, 116’, 120’, 126’ and 135’

Height Limit:

• 26’, two stories, possible basement

Information about specific streets:

• 18th & 19th Streets offer some larger lots, closer to town.
• 17th Street is a Cul-de-sac that dead ends into American Martyrs
• Fisher has good views.
• Center Place has income property.
• 36th St., 35th St., and the north side of 33rd St., are 135 deep lots with alleys.
• American Martyrs is often the most expensive area in the tree section.
• Between Pacific and Poinsettia and 17th and 18th Streets are the biggest lots in the tree section

Tree Section

• Predominantly single family homes.
• Newer homes in the 3,200-3,700sf range
• Original homes in the 1,200-1,800sf range

(more…)

Location: West of Sepulveda Blvd., south of Manhattan Beach Blvd. north of Boundary Pl. and east of Ardmore Ave.

• Predominantly single family homes
• Lot sizes in the 5,000-7,500sf range
• Newer homes in the 4,000sf range
• Height limit of 26’
• West side offers views provides ocean views
• East side offers views of the city.
• The Hill Section offers the most expensive properties, off The Strand.