South Bay Market Insights: Twelve months to August 2026

Archived edition. This is the September 17, 2026 edition of South Bay Market Insights, covering September 2025 through August 2026, kept as it was published. Its figures came from InfoSparks, which measures days on market and share of list price differently from the editions that follow, so compare it with later editions carefully. The current edition has the latest numbers.

One table, seven cities, the same twelve months. These are the figures we use when a client asks what a city is doing rather than what a listing says: closed sales of detached homes over the twelve months ending August 2026, drawn from the California Regional MLS through InfoSparks, and refreshed each quarter. The neighborhood pages break each city down by MLS area; this page is the view from above.

The city figures on this page are one level up from where value is set. The MLS compares a home against sales inside its own MLS area first, and a city like Redondo Beach is seven of them. The South Bay MLS Area Map shows every line, with a live search for each area.

What did homes sell for across the South Bay in the twelve months to August 2026?

Manhattan Beach led the beach cities at a median of $3,800,000 and an average price per square foot of $1,643, across 270 closed sales. Hermosa Beach closed at a median of $2,720,000 with a median $1,294 per square foot on 119 sales, and Redondo Beach, the largest market on the coast by volume, at a median of $1,815,000 and an average $1,013 per square foot across 376 sales. On the Peninsula, Rolling Hills carried the highest median in the region at $4,168,500 on just 24 sales, Palos Verdes Estates closed at a median of $2,900,000 and $1,031 per square foot on 148 sales, Rolling Hills Estates at $2,684,000 and $856 per square foot on 56 sales, and Rancho Palos Verdes, the Peninsula’s volume market, at $1,893,750 and $793 per square foot across 294 sales.

Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach report the average price per square foot; the other five report the median. The two measures are not interchangeable, which is why each cell says which it is. Rolling Hills did not publish a months-of-inventory figure for the period.

How to read the chart, and what each figure means for you

Each city carries six figures beneath its bar. They come from the same twelve months of closed detached-home sales and they answer different questions. What follows is what each one measures, why it matters, and how a seller and a buyer should read it.

Median sale price

The large figure at the right of each row and the length of the bar. It is the middle closed sale: half of the homes sold for more, half for less. The bar shows each city’s median as a share of the highest on the list, Rolling Hills. It matters because it is the one price figure that a single very large sale cannot distort, so it is the fairest reading of where the center of a city’s market sits.

For a sellerYour house is not the median, but the median tells you whether your intended list price asks buyers to stretch above the city’s center or sits inside it. A price well above the median needs a reason a buyer can see from the curb: the lot, the view, the condition.

For a buyerIt is the fastest test of whether a list price is in line with the city. A house asking a third more than the median is either an exceptional property or an ambitious price, and the rest of this page helps you tell which.

Average

All closed sales added together and divided by their number. A handful of large sales pulls the average up, which is why it sits above the median in every city on the list. The gap between the two is a reading of its own: the wider it is, the more the top of the market is shaping the numbers.

For a sellerIf your house is typical of its city, do not price from the average; it flatters. If your house is at the top of its city, the average is your territory and the median understates your comparables, and the right comparison is the handful of sales above the average, not the city as a whole.

For a buyerWhen the average runs far above the median, the top of the market is active and the headline “average price” overstates what most homes there cost. Shop from the median and treat the average as a description of the high end.

Per sq ft

Sale price divided by living area, reported as a median or an average as labelled. It strips size out of the comparison, and on this coast it measures what the market paid for the ground and the view rather than for the building alone, which is why this page argues from it.

For a sellerThis is the figure appraisers and serious buyers use to test your price. A small house on a full lot sells for a high per-foot figure and a large house for a lower one, so compare yourself with houses of similar size and lot, not with the city figure alone.

For a buyerTwo houses at the same list price can be very different values by the foot. Use it to see which one is priced for the lot and which for the building, and remember that a low per-foot figure on a large house is not a bargain if the land under it is ordinary.

Closed sales

The number of detached homes that closed escrow in the period, which is the size of the sample behind every other figure in the row. It matters because a small count, such as the 24 in Rolling Hills, means a single estate can move the median and the days on market, while a count in the hundreds is a settled picture.

For a sellerFew closings mean few comparables, more room to argue value in either direction, and a longer wait for the buyer who wants exactly what you have. Plan the calendar, not just the price, when your city trades in dozens rather than hundreds.

For a buyerIn a low-count city each new listing matters and competition concentrates on it, so be ready before it appears. In a high-count city you can afford to wait for the right house rather than the first acceptable one.

Days on market

The median number of days from the listing date to an accepted offer, with the escrow period excluded. It reads the depth of the buyer pool and the accuracy of pricing: a market that absorbs a well-priced home in two weeks has buyers waiting; one that takes six has buyers choosing.

For a sellerIf your city’s median is two weeks and your house passes a month, the market has given its answer, and the answer is price, presentation or both. Buyers read days on market as a signal, so the correction is worth more early than late.

For a buyerIn a two-week market there is no time to wait for a reduction on a well-priced house; decide quickly or lose it. The negotiating room is on the houses that have already passed the median, where the seller has seen the same number you have.

Share of original list

The median sale price as a percentage of the original asking price, not the price after any reduction. At 100 percent the typical home sold for what it first asked; above it, buyers competed; below it, the difference is the sum of price reductions and negotiated discounts. It is the truest measure of the cost of overpricing.

For a sellerA city at 99 or 100 percent rewards pricing right the first time and holding. A city at 92 percent is one where first prices are often wrong, and the eight points are what those sellers gave back. Set your list price to the figure you would accept, since in most of these cities that is what you will get.

For a buyerIt is your benchmark for an opening offer. In a 100 percent city an offer at 90 percent of asking will not be answered; in a 92 percent city it may be the start of a conversation. Read it with days on market: a house past the median days in a 97 percent city has room the figure alone does not show.

Months of inventory

How long the homes currently listed would take to sell at the recent pace of closings. The conventional benchmark for a balanced market is around six months; below that, supply is short and sellers hold the stronger position, above it the balance shifts to buyers. Every city on this list sits well under the benchmark. It matters because it is the figure that decides who sets the terms.

For a sellerUnder three months you can hold on contingencies, timelines and repairs, not only on price, and it is the reason to sell into a short-supply market rather than wait for a better one. As inventory climbs toward six months, each of those terms becomes negotiable again.

For a buyerLow inventory means fewer choices and more competition, so the strategy is preparation rather than patience: financing settled, inspections lined up, terms decided before the house appears. When the figure rises toward six months, patience begins to pay and the terms return to you.

Why is price per square foot the number to watch?

Median price tells you what the typical home sold for; price per square foot tells you what the market paid for the ground and the view under it, which is how value is actually set on this coast. The spread runs from $793 in Rancho Palos Verdes to $1,643 in Manhattan Beach, more than double, for cities fifteen minutes apart. Within each city the spread is wider still: the Palos Verdes Estates page shows Malaga Cove at $1,122 per square foot against a city median of $1,031, and the Manhattan Beach gradient from The Strand inland is described on the Manhattan Beach page. A buyer comparing two houses by list price alone is comparing the wrong number.

How fast do homes sell, and at what share of the asking price?

The beach cities moved in about two weeks at or near full price: a median of 12 days on market in Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach and 14 in Redondo Beach, with median sales at 100.0, 99.9 and 99.4 percent of original list price. The Peninsula took longer and negotiated harder: 21 days in Palos Verdes Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes at 96.7 and 96.9 percent, 17 days in Rolling Hills Estates at 98.0 percent, and 43 days in Rolling Hills at 92.3 percent, where a small number of large estates sets the pattern. Inventory sat between 2.5 months in Redondo Beach and 3.9 months in Rancho Palos Verdes, all of it below the level generally associated with a balanced market.

What does this mean for a seller?

In the beach cities, pricing at the market is rewarded within days and overpricing is punished within weeks, because the buyer pool is deep and well informed. On the Peninsula there is more room to negotiate and more time to do it, and a listing that sits past the median often does so because it was priced to a view it does not quite have. In every one of these cities the first question is the price per square foot of the last five comparable sales, not the last five listings. If you are weighing a sale, send us the address and we will show you those five.

Where do these figures come from, and how often are they updated?

Every number on this page is a twelve-month closed-sale statistic for detached homes from the California Regional MLS, generated through InfoSparks, and every city page on this site carries the same figures for its own MLS areas. We refresh them quarterly; this edition covers September 2025 through August 2026 and was published September 17, 2026. El Segundo, Torrance, San Pedro and the inland and Silicon Beach communities will be added with the next refresh. Stats presented here represent the city or area as a whole, not any one individual property. No figure here is an appraisal or an opinion of value for any specific property.