Manhattan Beach's housing market just set a new high-water mark: the city's median home price has reached $3,551,000, the highest figure on record. The milestone comes as the beach city logs its busiest sales stretch in half a decade, with homes moving briskly even as prices keep climbing.
The figure, based on sales over a rolling 12-month period, was reported by Manhattan Beach News per Manhattan Beach Confidential. A six-month dataset shows prices hovering around $3.8 million, underscoring just how pricey the city's housing stock has become even by its own standards. Manhattan Beach recorded 282 closed home sales from January 1 through September 30, 2026, the highest total in five years, an increase of 30 sales compared with the same period in 2025, a jump of about 12% year over year.
Dave Fratello, a broker with Edge Real Estate Agency and the author behind MB Confidential, said Manhattan Beach continues to see properties sell for more than ever, even as the wave of sales keeps building alongside rising prices. Fratello's commentary has tracked the market closely all year, offering analysis of new listings, new escrows, and new sales as the city's numbers have climbed. He's also been a go-to voice for insights on buying, selling, and off-market inventory in a city where competition for the right property remains fierce.
Spring Numbers Set the Stage
The record median didn't appear out of nowhere. Earlier in the year, Manhattan Beach recorded $491.2 million in closed home sales from January through April 2026, a 7.5% increase year-over-year, according to thembnews.com. That period saw 114 total sales compared with 111 during the same stretch in 2025, and the median sale price for that January-April window reached $3.8 million, up nearly $500,000 from the year before.
Twenty-four properties closed at $6 million or more during those same four months, the outlet's report notes. Cash purchases made up 36% of sales in that window, down from nearly 50% in each of the prior two years, though the Tree Section bucked that trend, with 48% of its sales closing without financing. As of April 30, the city counted just 59 active listings.
Inventory Keeps Tightening Into Fall
Momentum carried into summer, too. Manhattan Beach logged 45 closed home sales in July 2026, the highest monthly total since August 2021, according to keithkylehomes.com. By July 31, the median home price stood at $3.5 million per Manhattan Beach Confidential, a figure cited in a separate thembnews.com report on the city's assessed property values, which climbed to $29.07 billion for 2026, up 5.3%, or $1.46 billion, from the prior year.
October Brings Faster Sales, Fewer Price Cuts
Inventory fell roughly 16% during October, and homes began moving a little faster, according to a South Bay market report from scherbhomes.com. The city's median market time dropped to 44 days during the month, while price reductions decreased, the report found. Looking ahead, it projects roughly 3% to 6% appreciation for Manhattan Beach over the coming year.
The tightening isn't unique to Manhattan Beach. Nearby Hermosa Beach had just 17 homes in inventory in October, down from 24 in September, with median market time falling from 34 to 26 days and values running about 6.1% higher than a year earlier, per the same scherbhomes.com report.
For now, the record median stands as the headline number, with the Tree Section's $3 million to $4 million range described as especially competitive in recent reporting. Whether the market keeps climbing at this pace or settles into the more modest appreciation scherbhomes.com projects may become clearer as year-end sales data rolls in.
