Manhattan Beach home sales are setting records in 2026

Published July 18, 2026

Manhattan Beach closed $491.2 million in home sales from January through April 2026, up 7.5 percent year over year, with 24 homes trading at six million dollars or more.

The short version. From January through April 2026, Manhattan Beach recorded $491.2 million in closed home sales, up 7.5 percent over the same window last year, with 24 homes trading at six million dollars or more and a window median around $3.8 million. That median is up roughly half a million dollars in a single year. If you own a rental here, the same council also just declined to open the city to short term rentals for the summer. Here is the plain read on both.

I manage buildings a few miles from here, and I read these sales reports the way a mechanic reads an engine, not the way an agent reads a billboard. The land under your building has been doing quiet work for years. In 2026 the sales sheet finally said it out loud.

What the tally actually says

The local paper's numbers are specific, and specific is what earns your attention. Between January and April of 2026, Manhattan Beach closed $491.2 million in home sales, a 7.5 percent jump over the same four months a year earlier. Two dozen of those closings crossed the six million dollar line. The median sale in that window sat near $3.8 million. The part worth circling is the direction of travel: that figure climbed about $500,000 in twelve months.

I do not point at sale prices to nudge you toward selling. I point at them because a sale comp is the cleanest public reading of what the ground under your building is worth, and everything else leans on that number. A median that jumps half a million dollars in a year tells you the buyer pool is deep, patient, and shrugging off interest rates. That same demand is what keeps a well kept rental leased near the top of its range and keeps your vacancy windows short. In a town this size, a strong sales market and a strong rental market are not two stories. They are one story kept in two ledgers.

The summer nightly rental door just closed

Here is the piece most owners missed while the sales headlines ran. With the World Cup drawing crowds to the region in the summer of 2026, someone floated the obvious idea: let Manhattan Beach owners rent short term for a few months and catch the wave. In January 2026 the City Council voted the proposal down in a split decision. It would have opened short term rentals citywide outside the coastal zone, summer only. It did not pass.

So the long standing rule holds. Rentals in Manhattan Beach are for the longer stay, not the nightly booking, and no summer exception is coming. If you were tempted to flip a unit to nightly rates for a few high demand months, the city just took that lever off the table. Honestly, I think that lands as quiet good news for owners who hold for the long run. It keeps the block residential. It keeps your good tenants next to actual neighbors instead of rotating luggage. And it protects the exact stable character that makes this the kind of address people pay $3.8 million to buy into. That scarcity of nightly supply is part of why the annual lease here stays so strong.

Buyers are paying for the sidewalk too

Sales numbers do not float free of the street. Part of what buyers and renters are paying for right now is a downtown that keeps getting better a block off the pier. The French bistro Coucou opened in 2026 at 1131 Manhattan Avenue, one of several 2026 arrivals in a downtown refresh that brought new neighbors to the walking core. A rental three blocks from a dinner reservation people drive in for is a rental that leases itself.

There is a slower story running underneath, too. The city is studying a redevelopment of two civic sites downtown, with public engagement running through July 2026 and a conceptual proposal expected in August 2026, with any real construction likely years out toward 2028. None of that touches your rent this year. But if you own near the core, keep half an eye on it, because a reworked civic center is exactly the kind of long horizon project that firms up values on the blocks around it.

Where I would put your attention

If I ran your building, I would start by getting an honest read on what it is worth in this market, not what it penciled at two years ago. Medians moved $500,000 in a year. If your rents, your insurance, or your refinance math are still riding on a stale valuation, they are wrong in the direction that quietly costs you money.

I would also let the nightly rental idea go. The city shut that door for the summer, the long term lease is the model here, and in a market running this hot the annual lease is where the reliable money sits anyway. Price the renewal to the market you are actually standing in.

And if you want to add real value to a lot in a town where the land is the whole asset, the accessory dwelling unit is the lever worth studying. Manhattan Beach adopted new rules in its coastal code, including a new chapter governing accessory dwelling units under Ordinance 25-0004, adopted in April 2025, along with density bonus updates. The coastal zone rules are specific and they change, so confirm what your particular lot allows with a licensed professional before you design anything. But in a market pricing land the way this one is, a second legal unit can be the highest return improvement you ever make.

None of this is a reason to rush. It is a reason to know your own numbers, because right now the town is telling you what they are.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Confirm with a licensed professional before you act.

Topics: market, manhattan-beach, south-bay, luxury-market, short-term-rentals

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Schofield Properties is a family run property management company at 323 Richmond St, El Segundo, CA 90245. We have managed the South Bay since 1972 and personally oversee about 186 doors today. Book a call to talk about your property.