Beach Cities

The Beach Cities are Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach, the oceanfront cities at the south end of Santa Monica Bay, and in everyday use El Segundo just to the north. Together they run without a break from the airport to the foot of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. The streets are flat, gridded and walkable, and homes are priced by how far they sit from the water. The same floor plan can sell for a different number on each street back from the sand, and homes on the walk streets, The Strand and the Sand Section sell at a premium.

Over the twelve months to September 2026, detached homes in Manhattan Beach sold in a median of 22 days on market, at 98.4 percent of their original asking price, with 1.8 months of inventory on September 30. That means if no new homes came on the market, everything listed would sell in under two months. The median sale price was $3,813,000 across 270 closed sales (CRMLS, our own analysis, pulled October 2, 2026). For a seller, a well-priced home here is usually under contract in about three weeks. For a buyer, it means deciding quickly on the homes that fit. Stats presented here represent the city or area as a whole, not any one individual property.

We work both sides of this market. Chhabria Real Estate Company’s office is up the hill in Palos Verdes Estates, and Neil’s father, Raju Chhabria, was the top agent at Shorewood Realtors in Manhattan Beach every year from 1995 to 2014. In 2012 he ranked tenth in the United States by individual sales volume (Inman, June 2012). The family has since represented more than 130 transactions along The Strand and The Esplanade, so we can compare the beach and the hill from homes we have sold in both.

The MLS files Manhattan Beach as six areas, Hermosa Beach as three and Redondo Beach as seven, and a home is compared against sales inside its own area before anything else. The South Bay MLS Area Map shows each line, with our guide and a live search for every area.

You will also hear the Beach Cities called L.A.’s Beach Cities, the Beach Cities of Los Angeles, the South Bay Beach Cities, the South Bay’s Beach Cities or the beaches near LAX. All of them mean the coastline between Los Angeles International Airport and the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

This page covers which cities belong to the group, how they differ, and what it takes to buy or remodel here.

What are the Beach Cities?

The Beach Cities are Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach, each an independently incorporated oceanfront city in Los Angeles County. They sit south of El Segundo and north of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, occupying most of the south end of Santa Monica Bay.

Together they cover roughly 11.7 square miles of land and had a combined population of about 126,800 at the 2020 census. Each has its own city hall, its own permit counter and its own school district, all inside an area you can ride end to end in under half an hour.

They are also the southern half of what people mean by the beaches near LAX, with the airport to the north and the Peninsula to the south.

Is El Segundo one of the Beach Cities?

Not in the strict definition, and yes in everyday use. The difference shows up in which public agencies serve it.

The formal group is Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach. El Segundo sits immediately north of Manhattan Beach, between the Beach Cities and the airport. It is a separate city with its own municipal code, its own school district and a very different land-use mix, since much of its land is given to industry, aerospace and the refinery, and less of it to homes.

Beach Cities Health District, the public health agency that has served this coast since 1955, covers Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach, and El Segundo is not in it. Beach Cities Transit does include El Segundo.

Most buyers searching for the Beach Cities want El Segundo in the results too, so it is on this page, listed at the north end where it sits on the map.

A quick orientation to each one

• Manhattan Beach immediately south of El Segundo.
• Hermosa Beach the smallest by land area, between Manhattan and Redondo. See also the Hermosa Beach Sand Section, the walk-street grid closest to the water.
• Redondo Beach the largest by land area and the most varied in housing stock. See also South Redondo Beach.
• El Segundo the northernmost, bordering Los Angeles International Airport.

What separates them?

Less than the marketing suggests. They share one coastline, one climate and much of the same housing stock and architecture. The differences you can measure are municipal code and permitting, lot dimensions and the walk-street grid, height and view rules, school district, and distance to the sand.

Those are the comparisons we make on these pages, city by city, with the source for each. Which city fits is your call, and we will lay out the differences for any address you are weighing.

Beach Cities or the Peninsula?

The question we hear most is whether to be at the beach at all. Down here you get flat lots, walkability and the water close by. Up the hill on the Palos Verdes Peninsula you get larger lots, elevation and views, along with different geologic, insurance and architectural-review conditions.

If you are weighing both, start with the Palos Verdes Peninsula overview, then talk to us about what you are looking for and we will compare the two against it.

What connects the Beach Cities and El Segundo?

One continuous beach, one bike path and a short list of shared public agencies.

The Marvin Braude Bike Trail runs 22 miles along the shoreline, from Will Rogers State Beach in Pacific Palisades down to Torrance County Beach at the base of the Peninsula. Locally most people just call it The Strand, though it also goes by the Beach Bike Path and the South Bay Bicycle Trail. The full route was finished in 1989 and formally named in 2006 for Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude. The Hermosa section is far older, dating to 1908.

It runs past the beachfront homes in each of these cities, and plenty of people use it to get from one to the next.

Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach each have a municipal pier. Beach Cities Health District serves those three, and Beach Cities Transit serves them plus El Segundo. Otherwise each city runs independently, so a permit question can get a different answer in each one.

What does the coastal zone mean for a remodel here?

Much of this coastline sits inside California’s coastal zone, where work past a certain threshold requires a coastal development permit on top of the ordinary city building permit.

In practice it adds steps and time to a project, and it does not stop one. Two identical projects, one a few blocks inland and one near the sand, can run on very different schedules because only one of them carries the coastal review step. People build here every year by planning for that step from the start.

What to establish early on any property you are seriously considering:

• Whether the parcel is inside the coastal zone, and whether the city has a certified local coastal program that lets it issue the permit itself
• The city’s height limit and how it is measured, which differs from city to city
• Lot dimensions from the parcel record, and whether the lot was assembled from the original narrow subdivision
• Whether the address is on a walk street, which changes access, parking and construction staging
• Permit history, since this is old housing stock that has been modified repeatedly

With those five answers in hand before you write an offer, the rest of the process is fairly predictable. Without them, surprises tend to surface after contingencies are removed.

Are the Beach Cities part of Silicon Beach?

No. Silicon Beach refers to the coastal communities north of LAX. The Beach Cities are south of it.

The airport is the practical dividing line, and it separates two different markets that both get called “the beach” by people relocating here.

North of LAX, the Silicon Beach side: Playa Vista, Playa del Rey, Westchester, Marina del Rey, Mar Vista and Culver City. Most of this is City of Los Angeles, the housing runs newer and denser, and a large share of the buyer pool works in tech, entertainment or media.

South of LAX, the Beach Cities side: El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach. Each is a separate incorporated city, with its own city hall, its own school district structure and its own permit counter. Older housing stock, smaller lots, and a market that trades on walkability to the sand.

El Segundo sits right on the line, immediately south of the airport, and it is the crossover. It is a Beach City by jurisdiction and school district, and it draws from the same aerospace and tech employment base that pulls buyers to the Silicon Beach side. People who work north of LAX and want a beach city address often land there first.

If you are searching both sides, commute direction matters more than distance. Getting from Hermosa Beach to Playa Vista in the morning and back in the evening means passing the airport twice, and that drive takes longer at 8am than the map suggests.

If your search is open on both sides of the airport, start with the Silicon Beach Area overview and compare it against what is here. The two sides sell at similar prices with very different housing, and most people know which they prefer once they have toured both.

Which school districts serve which city?

Each city has its own district, listed below with its grade levels and a link to the district.

• Manhattan Beach, Manhattan Beach Unified School District, kindergarten through twelfth grade
• Hermosa Beach, Hermosa Beach City School District, kindergarten through eighth grade only. After eighth grade students may attend either Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach or Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach
• Redondo Beach, Redondo Beach Unified School District, kindergarten through twelfth grade, with Redondo Union High School serving the whole city
• El Segundo, El Segundo Unified School District, kindergarten through twelfth grade

The Hermosa structure is the one that surprises people, and it traces to a single vote. In November 1992 voters across Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach passed Proposition V by 59.1 percent, dissolving the old South Bay Union High School District and creating the separate districts in place since 1993.

Anywhere in the South Bay, an address is a strong indicator of school assignment, not a guarantee. Districts finalize elementary placement through the enrollment process, and where a school of residence is impacted a student may be placed at the nearest school with space. That is normal and manageable, and much easier to plan around in March than in August.

Each district above links to its own site, where you can confirm the attendance boundary for a specific address. Attendance boundaries are set by each district and change over time. Verify the current boundary for a specific address with the district office before relying on a listing, a map pin or this page.

Working with a Beach Cities agent

The useful knowledge on this coast is city by city and often block by block. Which lanes are walk streets. How a specific city measures height. Which lots were assembled and when. What the coastal permit path looks like for one particular parcel.

Chhabria Real Estate Company has sold homes on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and in the Beach Cities since 1984 and has represented more than 130 transactions along The Strand and The Esplanade. If you are weighing a specific address, send it over and we will walk you through the recent sales around it and anything the photos leave out.

Continue exploring

This page was verified September 14, 2026. Market figures updated from our October 2, 2026 CRMLS pull. Jurisdictional facts, zoning and district boundaries change. Confirm current status for any specific property before relying on it. General information, not legal, tax or insurance advice.

Buying or selling in the Beach Cities? Get in touch with the address or the search you have in mind, and we will show you what recent sales support.