There are two sub-areas of the South Bay that really stand out when it comes to exclusivity based on home values. Rolling Hills is one of them as it has been the most expensive area to buy for the vast majority of the past 10 years. The other one, the Hill section of Manhattan Beach, has been gaining ground with higher appreciation rates over the years and had even enjoyed one year at the top of the most expensive area to buy list. This past year they essentially had the same median sales price. The Hill section, however, appears to have greater momentum moving into 2010 and may very well see sales prices recover to their peak of a few years ago a year or two before Rolling Hills does.
Sales in both areas have halved from the stellar year of 2002, when most sub-areas in the South Bay had record numbers of units sold. These areas also both saw their sales rise by about 50 percent from the rock-bottom year of 2008. They are two of only a handful or so of the 34 South Bay sub-areas that have had both an increase in number of homes and median sales price this past year.
A big difference between the two areas is that the Hill section of Manhattan Beach has attracted much more investment in the form of remodel dollars. This past year, about one in five homes sold in the Hill section were built in 2008 or in 2009. Not a single home in Rolling Hills was new. In fact, we see a similar pattern at the beginning of the decade as well. There were no new homes sold in Rolling Hills that year, while in the Hill section, 20 percent of the homes were new. This may very well explain why the Hill section has seen median sales prices grow more rapidly over the course of the decade.
By the numbers, in 2008 the median sales price in the Hill section was $2.3 M and climbed to just under $2.5 M last year. The number of sales of single family homes rose from 17 to 26 over the same period.
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Posted by Tony Cordi 
The Blog for Beachtime Realty 