The Ten Most Expensive Areas to Live in the South Bay

This idea of this post began as a simple personal challenge.  Could I name the top ten areas on average to buy homes in the South Bay?  The short answer was no, but mostly because I’ve lived in the beach cities and have not been as exposed to Palos Verdes.  When I write about the South Bay, I tend to limit it to the three beach cities of Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach , as well as the cities of the Palos Verdes peninsula.  Additionally, when I use the word “area”, it is in the context of the real estate sub-areas of the South Bay.  There are over 30 such areas within the South Bay as I define it here.  The value provided for each area is a straight average of all single family homes sold in that area during the given year.  In 2007, the most expensive area, on average, was Rolling Hills.  This changed in 2008 when the Hermosa Beach sand section became the top area.  This year-to-date, it is once again the Rolling Hills area.

There are many reasons why this set of lists should not be taken too seriously.  For starters, using an average is problematic in years when there are fewer data points.  Also, some areas have wide ranges of home values because of the way the boundaries are drawn.  A case in point is the Manhattan Beach sand section.  Homes on the Strand tend to have sales prices much higher than those in the 400 or 500 blocks.  Taking an average of an area with this situation can be a little misleading.  A third difficulty is that in some areas there are the occasional super luxury sales that skew the numbers on the high side (there have been several homes that have sold for over $10 M over the last five years) .

I started with 2007 because it was the peak sales price year for many of the areas in the South Bay.  All but a few areas experienced price declines in 2008.  The same is true when going to 2009.  Only two areas have maintained there average sales price this year through October.  All others have continued to decline.  It is worth noting that the average of all of the average sales prices dropped five percent from 2007 to 2008.  What’s worse, this decline grew an additional 17 percent this year thus far.  All but four of the areas in this study have seen average sales prices drop by over 15 percent from 2009 through this year-to-date.

2007 Top Ten Most Expensive Areas

Rolling Hills – $3.44 M

Malaga Cove – $2.86 M

West Palos Verdes – $2.68 M

Manhattan Beach Hill – $2.62 M

Hermosa Beach Sand – $2.42 M

Manhattan Beach Sand – $2.37 M

Monte Malaga – $2.27 M

La Cresta – $2.06 M

Manhattan Beach Village – $2 M

Manhattan Beach Tree – $1.96 M

2008 Top Ten Most Expensive Areas

Hermosa Beach Sand – $3.08 M

West Palos Verdes – $2.94 M

Rolling Hills – $2.67 M

Malaga Cove – $2.65 M

Manhattan Beach Hill – $2.58 M

Manhattan Beach Sand – $2.14 M

Monte Malaga – $2.07 M

Lunada Bay – $1.94 M

La Cresta – $1.87 M

Manhattan Beach Tree – $1.8 M

2009 Top Ten Most Expensive Areas (Through October)

Rolling Hills – $2.64 M

Manhattan Beach Hill – $2.41 M

Manhattan Beach Sand – $2.1 M

Monte Malaga – $2.07 M

Malaga Cove – $2.02 M

Hermosa Beach Sand – $1.95 M

Lunada Bay – $1.77 M

West Palos Verdes – $1.66 M

Manhattan Beach Tree – $1.5 M

La Cresta – $1.44 M

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