For Manhattan Beach, 2023 is being called "one of the oddest years in local real estate over the past two decades or more."

With only 253 closings within the calendar year, the year 2023 slumped far behind the "crash years" of 2008-09 (see graph above).

Demand didn't exactly disappear, although there were fewer buyers overall, with many frozen out by higher mortgage rates. And inventory was almost always ultra low. 

"Fewer people liked the notion of selling and giving up a low rate," observed Dave Fratello, the broker at Edge Real Estate Agency and blog author of Manhattan Beach Confidential.

All told, 2023 had 21% fewer sales than 2022. Furthermore, the total number of sales in 2023 was 36% below the average number of sales per year from 2008-2019 (exempting pandemic-affected years).

And then, not to pile on, but... the median price also dropped by 10% over the course of the year. (Say what?!?)

"Context and timing are always important," observed Fratello. "Right now we're feeling like it's grim news to many folks to see the median home price drop 10%. But just 2 1/2 years ago, in July 2021, we were talking about the local median hitting $2.800M as being like a moon shot. It seems the capsule has returned home."

See Manhattan Beach Confidential's full 2023 end-of-year analysis here.