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South Bay Q4 and Year End Home Statistics

Richard Haynes
South Bay Q4 and Year End Home Statistics

For a real estate data geek, I love end of quarter statistics in our South Bay home market.

The end of Q4 is my favorite because we get to also look at full-year comparisons as we begin the new year. Numbers do not lie, and this new batch of data is eye opening to say the least.

We are really seeing the effects of sky-high interest rates cool our local home market significantly.

In short, the numbers are ugly. This could be an early sign that we are in for a tough home market in 2023. That, at least, is my humble interpretation of the stats from Q4 over Q4, along with 2022 over 2021.

Additionally, I took sales numbers from 2019, the last time the market was “normal” before the Coronavirus pandemic and South Bay home sales are still weak.

You be the judge and read the numbers below for yourself!

Manhattan Beach

Manhattan Beach seems to be up every single quarter. For the first time in a long time, that did not happen. The swanky beach town saw its quarterly median price fall by 17.3%.

Not only was Q4 2021 a scorching hot quarter for almost all real estate markets, but interest rates were also still, for the most part, near historical lows. It seems rates hovering in the 6% range and traditional seasonality returning, that the market is finally taking a step back.

If you consider median prices year-over-year below, it is not as ugly.

That said, a full 2022 over 2021 comp of median prices up just 3.4% is a major shift from the torrid price growth Manhattan Beach is used to seeing since the summer of 2020.

Much like all markets, Manhattan Beach’s sales are crashing.

Is “that “crashing” the right word? I think it is fair and it is true for most cities. A drop of 46.7% is a “crash-like” number, however, seasonality returning is of course a factor.

But as you will see, if you even compare Q4 sales to 2019 (pre-coronavirus) it is still a major drop of 36.3% in sales. That is a weak signal – a trend you will see throughout this post.

Now onto the yearly numbers…

Again, sales are down huge on a yearly basis and still down in a big way from 2019.

Yikes.

Palos Verdes Peninsula

The Palos Verdes home market has been on a tear for the last 2.5 years.

While the Rolling Hills Estates market has shown some price depreciation over the past couple of quarters, nearly all other markets have continued to go up.

But, in Q3’s report you might remember my surprise of climbing prices with the asterisk that those growing prices were decelerating in a big way. That deceleration was certainly a sign with the newly released Q4 median price below.

Below are 2022 Q4 prices vs. 2021 Q4 prices:

Palos Verdes Estates has been on fire for years. That has now stopped with a small reversal in price. The same goes for Rancho Palos Verdes.

Rolling Hills Estates is down significantly, however, I always note that affordable condo sales have picked up in this market skewing prices and RHCC is now sold out which will have a major effect on median price.

From a yearly median price standpoint, things are not nearly as weak.

Palos Verdes Estates is still up huge for the 2022 year, along with Rancho Palos Verdes up soundly and Rolling Hills Estates staying flat which is a lot stronger sign than it looks (again, condos + RHCC factor).

Since Behind the Gates in Rolling Hills has so few sales, it is not fair to look at Q4 numbers, but the 2022 median price results were surely a big disappointment down over 15%.

Rolling Hills was one of the worst performing markets of the decade but came out as the best performing market of the past two years. Now that Coronavirus is in the rear-view mirror, does the luxe gated city go back to lagging growth?

Per 2022 stats, it may seem like a possibility.

Onto the sales numbers…

Just like Manhattan Beach, the Palos Verdes home market is not immune to crashing sales.

Most of The Hill for Q4 is down between 35% and 45% when examining sales on the quarter. Again, interest rates and a return to traditional seasonality are having a major effect on sales.

What’s more, comparing sales to 2019 is almost as ugly. Home sales are nearly cut in half on the Palos Verdes Hill for Q4 no matter how you slice it.

Now onto the yearly numbers…

The yearly sales numbers are still down in a big way, but thankfully, if you compare 2022 sales to 2019 things don’t look as bad.

The stronger 2019 numbers give us hope that sales are better than they look on The Hill, but another slow quarter and it could really be a negative sign for the P.V. home market.

And don’t forget Rolling Hills…

Sales down 62.5% is a massive drop, no doubt. Thankfully, the market was similar in 2019 but 2010 – 2019 was a really underwhelming time to own Rolling Hills real estate.

Hermosa Beach

With all of the ugly data coming from Palos Verdes and Manhattan Beach, surely, little dependable Hermosa Beach can give us some good news with its steady growth before, during and after the pandemic.

Unfortunately, it is not much better – see below:

For the first time in many, many quarters, Hermosa Beach median prices are down YoY. I am sad – Lol.

Furthermore, median prices are still down in 2022 over 2021 basis. This is quite a turn of events for Hermosa Beach and the South Bay home market as a whole.

Sales in Hermosa are falling precipitously like on The Hill and its neighboring Manhattan Beach. I’ll say it again, sky-high rates are taking its toll along with seasonality becoming the knock-out punch.

Yearly, sales are still down in a big way but the one bright spot is compared to 2019 it is not nearly as bad. That said, it is still lower by a good chunk, and another bad quarter or two, the sales pace could be slower than we’ve known for nearly half a decade.

Redondo Beach

Onto our last city of the post, and finally (and thankfully), I have positive numbers to report. I guess we saved the best for last.

Prices are up in Redondo Beach!

Plain and simple, this is a great result for Q4 median prices in Redondo and up nearly 10%.

Please note, for simplicity purposes, these numbers do include parts of Hollywood Riviera (Torrance) but all the comps (Q4, 2021, and 2019) contain Hollywood Riviera numbers so the jump is not artificially juiced.

Full-year numbers are just as dreamy for Redondo, up over 10.7% which is amazing result considering the tough market circumstances and all the other cities really tanking for the most part.

Prices are where the music stops because Redondo’s sales are still collapsing on Q4 over Q4 basis down almost 50% and almost 40% when compared to the more normal 2019 numbers.

Again, 2022 over 2021 sales numbers are falling and still falling hard compared to 2019 as well.

While Redondo Beach was able to buck the trend on median prices, it is still showing signs of sales weakness, like the rest of the South Bay beach cities and Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Major Take-Aways

There is a lot to take in for this Q4 and yearly report.

What is becoming clearer is the numbers are now confirming that there is a shift happening in our South Bay real estate markets beyond just slowing sales.

Is it a Great Recession real estate price collapse? Not even close, but the market is clearly softening.

The 4th quarter was weak on median price for all markets except for Redondo Beach. To be fair, the 4th quarter of 2021 was one of the strongest on record before interest rates began to rise, but we are now seeing the effects of how The Fed is slowing prices.

From a yearly price perspective, the Hermosa and Manhattan Beach markets are just about flat, Redondo Beach is strong, and the Palos Verdes Hill is mixed (half weak and half strong).

Those stats are a little bit better, but the yearly numbers are certainly showing weakness as well after an extremely weak Q4.

What is most concerning is likely the collapse (and I mean collapse) of sales across the board.

Closed sales down between 30% and 60% is never a good thing. And when compared to 2019 numbers, which was a slow year unto itself, sales are still down.

What is saving this market from an even tougher time is all-time low inventory. With supply constrained, our market has been resilient, however, we are still seeing prices slip and sales fall mightily.

Conclusion

All in all, this was an ugly report almost any way you look at it.

This challenging quarter could be an aberration of buyers waiting on the sidelines until 2023, along with many sellers holding out because of their ultra-low interest rates.

If the weak trends continue into the first quarter of 2023, then the South Bay home market could be in for a tough year.

Stay tuned for weekly reports and the next update in April!

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