Monte Malaga

Monte Malaga is a neighborhood of Palos Verdes Estates, California, above Malaga Cove.

Chhabria Real Estate agents have closed more than 70 sales in Monte Malaga, on the record in CRMLS. By dollar volume it is the neighborhood our firm has sold more of than any other on the Peninsula.

Interactive chart below: InfoSparks, drawn from CRMLS with its own definitions and date range, for Palos Verdes Estates as a whole. The figures in the table further down come from our own CRMLS pull and can differ from the chart.

See homes for sale in this area →

How does Monte Malaga compare with Lunada Bay?

Over the twelve months from October 2025 through September 2026, the median single-family detached home in MLS area 162 (Monte Malaga) sold for $3,614,000, against $2,824,000 in MLS area 160 (Lunada Bay). That’s 28 percent more money. In closed sales records from September 2025 through August 2026, the median Monte Malaga home measured 3,559 square feet against 3,136 in Lunada Bay, 13 percent more house, and the median lot measured 18,177 square feet against 10,962, 66 percent more land.

Monte Malaga homes sold in a median of 45 days at 94.1 percent of the original asking price, about $59,000 under asking for every $1 million. With 5 sales from July through September and 8 homes for sale on October 11, today’s supply would last nearly five months at that pace. If you’re buying, that leaves room to negotiate. If you’re selling, in Neil’s experience pricing to the most recent comparable sales from the first day is what keeps a listing from sitting.

The premium in Monte Malaga buys land, not house. The median price per square foot was $1,025 in Monte Malaga and $998 in Lunada Bay, about 3 percent apart. Moving between the two neighborhoods, you pay close to the same for a square foot of house, and the extra money buys lot.

Average and median measure the same market two ways. The average adds every sale together and divides by the number of sales, so a few high-value homes pull it up. The median is the middle sale, so it stays closer to the typical home. We show both. Why the two numbers differ, and which one to use.

Source: CRMLS. Sale prices, days on market, share of asking, price per square foot and sale counts: closed single-family detached sales, October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026, from Chhabria Real Estate Company’s October 11, 2026 pull, with months of inventory using active listings counted that day. Median living area and lot size: closed single-family detached sales, September 1, 2025 to August 31, 2026. Stats presented here represent the city or area as a whole, not any one individual property. Our next update follows the November 10, 2026 market report.

What size lot does Monte Malaga sell?

The median lot sold in MLS area 162 (Monte Malaga) over the twelve months ending August 2026 measured 18,177 square feet, a little over four-tenths of an acre. Monte Malaga is a large-lot market and it is consistent about it, which is why the neighborhood looks the way it does and why what trades here trades in a narrower band than the lot sizes alone might suggest.

How old is the housing stock in Monte Malaga?

The median detached home sold in MLS area 162 (Monte Malaga) over the twelve months ending August 2026 was built in 1977. Nearly half of what sold, 48%, was built in 1980 or later, and 6 of the 23 sales were built in 2000 or later.

In MLS area 160 (Lunada Bay) over the same period, 23% of what sold was built in 1980 or later, and about a third of it dates from the 1950s. Monte Malaga has replaced more of its housing stock than Lunada Bay has.

That changes the question a buyer is asking. In Lunada Bay a buyer is often buying the land and deciding what to put on it. In Monte Malaga a buyer is more often buying the house someone already built, at the size they chose, with the Art Jury approvals already spent. That is an advantage for a buyer who wants to move in rather than start a project. Read the Palos Verdes Art Jury buyer’s guide.

That is a different purchase and it is a different negotiation.

Source: California Regional MLS (CRMLS). Closed single-family detached sales, September 1, 2025 to August 31, 2026, reported by MLS area.

What approvals does a remodel need in Monte Malaga?

Monte Malaga is in Palos Verdes Estates. That means the PVHA Art Jury governs any exterior change: additions, replacements, new structures, anything visible from the street. The Neighborhood Compatibility Ordinance applies to projects at scale. Neither timeline is short.

What is specific to Monte Malaga is size. The houses here are large, and the renovation projects that come with them are large. An addition on a 5,000-square-foot house carries its own body of Art Jury precedent. Knowing what has been approved on comparable properties in this neighborhood, and on what terms, is part of the due diligence on any project home here.

We have negotiated those projects. The record here is deep enough to be useful before you make an offer.

See the Palos Verdes Art Jury buyer guide for the framework that applies across all of PVE.

The name and the plan

The name is a deliberate construction. “Monte” is Spanish for hill or mountain. “Malaga” is the port city on Spain’s Costa del Sol, the same Mediterranean source the Olmsted Brothers drew on across the entire Palos Verdes project. Every PVE neighborhood was assigned a distinct European coastal character. Malaga Cove was the Mediterranean village. Margate was the English coast. Montemalaga was the hill above the cove.

The Olmsted Brothers opened their first West Coast office in 1922 specifically for this project. The principals were in residence during design and construction. Each neighborhood’s character was chosen.

The original plan designated Montemalaga as one of PVE’s minor business centers. It was never built. What was drawn as a commercial node became the Peninsula’s most consistent large-lot residential neighborhood. The half-acre lots and the street grid are what remain of that plan.

The streets

Via Cerritos has traded seven times in our record. Granvia Altamira six. Paseo La Cresta, Via Rincon and Via Coronel five apiece.

Eight properties here we have sold more than once. 1704 Via Coronel twice. 1560 Via Zurita twice. We sold 2232 Via La Brea in September 2006 at $1,500,000, when it was a 2,881 square foot house built in 1955, and again in May 2010 at $4,700,000, after it had been replaced with a house of roughly 6,300 square feet. That is Monte Malaga in a single address.

Paseo La Cresta

Raju Chhabria built his own house on Lower Paseo La Cresta.

He arrived on the Peninsula in 1984, promised himself he would own a house here, and spent the next decade earning it. When he finally built, this is the street he chose.

We have sold on Paseo La Cresta five times since.

What schools serve Monte Malaga?

Montemalaga Elementary is on Vía Nogales, inside this neighborhood. (Three of our closings recorded on this same street.)

The Peninsula is a hill, and for most of it the school run is a drive down one canyon and up another. Here the school is embedded in the neighborhood. It is not a commute. It is part of the street you live on.

School attendance boundaries are subject to change and are not guaranteed. You are advised to verify current attendance areas, enrollment eligibility, and all school information directly with the school district for any specific address.

Working here

Seventy-one closings in one neighborhood is not a marketing number. It is four decades of sitting at kitchen tables on Via Cerritos and Granvia Altamira and Via Coronel, and knowing what a 5,000 square foot house on a half-acre is actually worth to the next buyer rather than what the last comp says.

If you are selling in Monte Malaga, the risk is not underpricing. It is pricing off the wrong comparison.

Monte Malaga is entirely residential. There is no commercial center in this neighborhood. The nearest daily conveniences are found nearby at Malaga Cove Plaza, a few minutes down the hill, but that belongs to Malaga Cove, and Malaga Cove is a different area.

See everything we have closed.

Continue exploring

By Neil Chhabria, Broker and CEO, Chhabria Real Estate Company. Facts checked September 16, 2026. Market figures updated from our October 11, 2026 CRMLS pull.