"Right now, it looks like 2022 will lack that 'extra' billion dollars seen last year," said Dave Fratello, author of Manhattan Beach Confidential and broker at Edge Real Estate Agency. "That bulge has busted."

It's extremely unlikely that Dec. 2022 data are going to push the Jan. 1-Dec. 31, 2022, totals over $2.5 billion, added Fratello.

Consider that the Nov. 2022 data includes a "pretty good" Dec. 2021, with $239M in sales, he said, while only four months of 2022 have seen, or exceeded, that dollar volume (April-July). In fact, November this year saw a total of just $132M in closings.

"We're only likely to see a much lower year-end figure," said Fratello. "Logically, we should expect the year-end total somewhere in the $2.3 billion range for Manhattan Beach home sales in all of 2022, which could be a $1.2 billion drop from the year before."

Fratello went on to predict that this measure of sales volume "may bottom out nearer to $2.0 billion" early next year, before rising again. 

The drop in money spent on local homes is almost entirely due to the fact that far fewer homes have sold recently. A total of 180 fewer homes sold in the 12-month period ending Nov. 30 than had sold in the 12 months of 2021. 

Local home prices are adjusting on a case-by-case basis, but "haven't adjusted much on a macro level," Fratello added.

Despite the big pullback in sales locally, Fratello also predicted that Manhattan Beach will have a more "normal" spring market, as sellers adjust to buyers' expectations.

So was there a the lesson that came out of the 2020-22 "frenzy" in local real estate? "It was fun while it lasted," he said wryly.