Half the Country Can't Sell Their Home
Here's Why the South Bay Sells in 10 Days
Correction (April 8, 2026): An earlier version of this article contained incorrect active listing counts and months-of-inventory figures for the four South Bay cities, based on a data error in the original CRMLS report. The active listings and MOI figures have been corrected below. All sold counts, days-on-market figures, and sale-price-to-list-price ratios were accurate as originally published. The broader analysis and conclusions are unchanged.
There are $347 billion worth of homes sitting on the market right now that nobody wants to buy.
That number comes from Redfin’s latest analysis, published last week, and it describes a phenomenon the industry has started calling “stale inventory” — homes that have been listed for at least 60 days without going under contract. [1] As of February 2026, 52.2% of all U.S. home listings had crossed that threshold, up from 50.1% a year earlier and the highest share since 2019. More than half the homes for sale in America are going nowhere.
The typical home that went under contract in February spent 66 days on the market — the slowest pace in a decade for this time of year. [1] There are now a record 630,000 more home sellers than buyers nationwide. [1] In Miami, nearly two-thirds of all listings are stale. In San Antonio, Pittsburgh, and West Palm Beach, the numbers are nearly as grim. [1]
And then there is the South Bay.
In Manhattan Beach, the median home sold in 11 days in March. In North Redondo Beach, it was 10 days. In South Redondo Beach, 11 days. [2] Across all four beach cities I track — Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, North Redondo, and South Redondo — 97 homes closed in March, and homes sold at between 97.4% and 100% of their asking price. [2]
Nationally, a Redfin agent in New Orleans told the brokerage that "nine times out of 10, homes are selling for under their asking price." [1] In North Redondo Beach, homes sold at exactly 100% of asking. [2]
The gap between what’s happening here and what’s happening everywhere else is not a minor regional variation. It is a structural divergence — and understanding why it exists is the key to making smart decisions in this market, whether you’re buying, selling, or watching from the sidelines.
The Stale Inventory Map
Redfin’s data paints a clear geographic picture of where the housing market has seized up and where it hasn’t.
The metros with the highest share of stale listings are concentrated in two categories: Sun Belt markets that overbuilt during the pandemic boom, and older industrial cities where population growth has stalled. Miami leads the nation at 62.6% stale, followed by San Antonio (58.3%), Pittsburgh (58.1%), and West Palm Beach (55.9%). [1] In Miami, San Antonio, and West Palm Beach, there are more than twice as many sellers as buyers — a dynamic that turns every listing into a waiting game. [1]
The metros with the lowest stale rates tell a different story. San Jose leads at just 19.8%, followed by San Francisco (24%), Oakland (31.1%), Anaheim (34%), and Seattle (34.1%). [1] These are markets where supply remains structurally constrained, demand is anchored by high-income employment centers, and the lock-in effect keeps existing homeowners from listing.
Source: Redfin, February 2026 data [1]
The South Bay doesn’t appear on Redfin’s metro-level breakdown because it’s embedded within the broader Los Angeles metro. But the local data tells a story that would place it firmly at the bottom of the stale list — alongside San Jose and San Francisco, and miles from the national average.
10 Days vs. 66 Days: The South Bay in March
The contrast becomes vivid when you line up the local numbers against the national benchmarks.
Nationally, the typical home that sold in February spent 66 days on the market — the slowest February pace in a decade. [1] In the South Bay, March’s median days on market ranged from 10 to 33 days, with three of the four cities coming in at 11 days or fewer. [2]
Sources: CRMLS data South Bay); Redfin (national) [1] [2]
Several data points deserve emphasis.
Manhattan Beach is operating at 1.63 months of inventory — well under the 4-to-6-month range that defines a “balanced” market. With 35 homes sold in March against 57 active listings, the market is absorbing inventory at a pace that keeps sellers firmly in control. [2]
North Redondo Beach posted a 100% sale-price-to-list-price ratio in March — homes selling at full asking price, on average, in just 10 days. [2] This is the opposite of the national pattern, where the Redfin agent’s observation that “nine times out of 10, homes are selling for under their asking price” has become the norm. [1]
South Redondo Beach showed the most dramatic acceleration. Its median days on market collapsed from 57 in February to 11 in March — a 46-day improvement in a single month. Sales volume surged 55%, and the sale-price-to-list-price ratio strengthened from 96.5% to 98.9%. [2] This is a market that shifted from sluggish to competitive in four weeks.
Even Hermosa Beach, which posted the highest median days on market among the four cities at 33, still improved dramatically from February’s 49-day median and remains well below the national 66-day benchmark. [2]
Why the South Bay Is Different: Three Structural Forces
The divergence between the South Bay and the national market is not random, and it is not temporary. It is driven by three structural forces that are unlikely to reverse anytime soon.
The Lock-In Effect Is Strongest Where It Matters Most
The 30-year fixed mortgage rate stood at 6.46% in the week ending April 3, according to Freddie Mac. [3] The majority of existing homeowners, however, hold mortgages with rates below 5% — many in the 2% to 4% range secured during the pandemic era. [4]
This creates what economists call the “lock-in effect”: homeowners who would otherwise sell and move are staying put because the financial penalty of trading a 3% mortgage for a 6.5% mortgage is too steep. On a $1.5 million home — a modest price by South Bay standards — the difference between a 3% and a 6.5% mortgage translates to roughly $3,100 per month in additional interest costs. On a $3 million Manhattan Beach home, the gap exceeds $6,000 per month.
The lock-in effect operates everywhere, but its impact on supply is most acute in high-cost coastal markets. In a $300,000 market, the monthly rate differential might be $600 — meaningful, but manageable. In Manhattan Beach, where the median sale price is $3.45 million, the differential is a second mortgage payment. The result is that the homeowners most likely to stay locked in are the ones whose homes would be most valuable to the market if they listed.
This is why inventory in the South Bay remains so compressed even as national inventory rises. The homes that would normally replenish supply — the move-up seller trading to a bigger house, the empty-nester downsizing to a condo — are not coming to market because the math doesn’t work.
Geography Cannot Be Replicated
The second structural force is one that never changes: the South Bay’s physical constraints.
Manhattan Beach is 3.9 square miles bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west, Hermosa Beach to the south, El Segundo to the north, and Hawthorne to the east. There are no undeveloped parcels. There is no annexation opportunity. There is no master-planned community on the horizon. Every transaction involves an existing home changing hands — and in a city where the total housing stock is roughly 14,000 units, 35 sales in a month represents meaningful absorption of a finite resource.
This is the fundamental difference between the South Bay and the Sun Belt markets where stale listings are piling up. In Miami, San Antonio, and West Palm Beach, developers responded to pandemic-era demand by building aggressively. New construction flooded those markets with supply that is now competing with resale inventory for a shrinking buyer pool. The result is the stale inventory crisis Redfin documented.
In the South Bay, new construction means tearing down an existing home and building a replacement on the same lot. It does not add to the housing stock. It replaces one unit with one unit. The supply side of the equation is structurally capped in a way that Sun Belt markets will never experience.
Tariffs Are Making the Supply Problem Worse
The third force is newer and still evolving, but its direction is clear. The tariffs on building materials that took effect in April 2026 — including a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum and a 10% tariff on softwood lumber — are adding an estimated $17,500 to $18,500 to the cost of every new home built in the United States. [5] The National Association of Home Builders has estimated the per-home tariff cost at $10,900 based on 2025 data, a figure that has since risen as additional tariffs have been implemented. [6] Construction material costs overall are up between 8.5% and 9.6% due to tariff impacts. [7]
In markets where new construction is a meaningful source of supply, these cost increases are slowing the pipeline. Builders are delaying projects, repricing contracts, and in some cases shelving developments entirely. The MBA has already revised its 2026 home sales forecast downward from an 8% increase to 5%, citing tariff-related uncertainty among the contributing factors. [8]
In the South Bay, the tariff impact operates differently. New construction here is almost exclusively custom single-family homes — tear-down-and-rebuild projects where the land value dwarfs the construction cost. A $500,000 lot in North Redondo might see a $17,500 tariff surcharge as a meaningful cost increase. A $5 million lot in the Sand Section will absorb it as a rounding error. The tariffs will not stop construction in Manhattan Beach.
But they will slow the already-glacial pace of new supply everywhere else, which means the national inventory recovery that many analysts are counting on to rebalance the market is going to take longer than expected. And that, in turn, reinforces the relative scarcity of well-located, supply-constrained markets like the South Bay.
The Velocity Gap Is Widening
One of the most underappreciated aspects of the current market is that the divergence between fast markets and slow markets is not stable — it is accelerating.
Consider the trajectory. In February 2025, 50.1% of national listings were stale. By February 2026, that number had risen to 52.2% — a 2.1-percentage-point increase in a single year. [1] Meanwhile, in the South Bay, the trend moved in the opposite direction. South Redondo Beach’s median days on market fell from 57 to 11 between February and March 2026. North Redondo’s fell from 16 to 10. Manhattan Beach’s held steady at 11 after dropping from 8 in February — a slight uptick that reflects the seasonal influx of new listings, not a loss of momentum. [2]
The national market is getting slower. The South Bay is getting faster. The gap between 66 days nationally and 10-11 days locally is not just large — it is growing.
This has practical implications. For sellers in markets where listings are going stale, the conventional advice is to cut the price, improve the staging, or wait for rates to drop. For sellers in the South Bay, the advice is different: price accurately, prepare the home properly, and be ready for the phone to ring quickly. The two markets require fundamentally different strategies because they are operating under fundamentally different conditions.
What the Stale Inventory Crisis Means for the South Bay
The national stale inventory problem is not just a story about other markets. It has direct implications for the South Bay, even though the symptoms are inverted here.
First, it reinforces the migration pattern that has been feeding South Bay demand. When markets in Miami, Austin, and Phoenix soften — when homes sit unsold for months and prices begin to negotiate downward — the perceived stability of coastal California becomes more attractive to relocating buyers. The South Bay has always drawn buyers from other high-cost metros (San Francisco, New York, Chicago) and from within the broader Los Angeles basin. A national market that feels uncertain makes the South Bay’s track record of consistent demand and limited supply more appealing, not less.
Second, the stale inventory crisis is a leading indicator of where distressed sales may eventually emerge. Markets where homes sit unsold for 60, 90, or 120 days are markets where sellers begin to capitulate on price. If that dynamic accelerates in Sun Belt metros, it could create a perception of a national housing downturn that spooks buyers everywhere — including in markets like the South Bay where the fundamentals don’t support that narrative. The risk for the South Bay is not that it will experience a downturn. The risk is that national headlines about one could temporarily dampen buyer confidence here.
Third, and most importantly for current decision-making: the stale inventory data confirms that the window for selling in the South Bay is not closing. It is, if anything, widening relative to the rest of the country. In a market where 52% of listings nationally are going stale, the ability to sell a home in 10-11 days at 99-100% of asking price is not just good. It is exceptional. And it is a function of structural conditions — geographic scarcity, the lock-in effect, high-income demand — that are not going to change because of a tariff announcement or a rate fluctuation.
What This Means for You
If you’re a seller in the South Bay: The March data confirms that this is one of the strongest seller’s markets in the country. But “strong” does not mean “effortless.” The homes that sold fastest and closest to asking were the ones priced accurately from day one. In a market where the median days on market is 10-11 days, overpricing by even 5% can turn a quick sale into a 30-day listing — and in a market this fast, 30 days starts to look like a problem. The national stale inventory data is your leverage in conversations with buyers who think they have negotiating power. They don’t — not here, not now.
If you’re a buyer in the South Bay: The velocity of this market means preparation is everything. Homes in the $2M-$4M range in Manhattan Beach and North Redondo are moving in days, not weeks. If you’re waiting for the market to soften before making a move, the data suggests you’ll be waiting a long time. The structural forces keeping this market tight — the lock-in effect, geographic constraints, tariff-driven supply limitations — are not cyclical. They are not going to reverse because the Fed cuts rates by a quarter point.
That said, the data also reveals opportunities. Hermosa Beach, with its 33-day median and 97.4% SP/LP ratio, offers slightly more room to negotiate than Manhattan Beach or North Redondo. South Redondo, despite its dramatic acceleration in March, still carries the highest months of inventory among the four cities at 3.41 — still a seller's market, but the least compressed of the group and the one where patient buyers may find the most flexibility. [2] If you're priced out of Manhattan Beach's Sand Section, these adjacent markets offer genuine value with the same coastal lifestyle.
If you’re watching from outside the South Bay: The stale inventory data is a national story, but it is not a universal one. If you’re in a market where homes are sitting for 60+ days, the dynamics are fundamentally different from what’s happening on the coast. Before making any decision based on national headlines — whether that’s listing your home, making an offer, or sitting on the sidelines — look at your local data. The gap between the 52.2% national stale rate and the South Bay’s 10-day median tells you everything you need to know about why local market intelligence matters more than national narratives.
Gary Senser is a residential real estate strategist with Botello & Senser at ESTATE PROPERTIES, specializing in Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach. For questions or a confidential market consultation, reach him at 310-383-2779.
DRE #01903493
Sources
[1]: Redfin via The Mortgage Point. “Over Half of Home Listings Across the Nation Are Going ‘Stale.’” April 1, 2026. https://themortgagepoint.com/2026/04/01/over-half-of-home-listings-are-going-stale-across-the-nation/
[2]: CRMLS data for Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, North Redondo Beach, and South Redondo Beach, March 2026.
[3]: First Tuesday Journal. “Trending Mortgage Rates.” Week ending April 3, 2026. https://journal.firsttuesday.us/current-market-rates/3832/
[4]: Norada Real Estate. “Mortgage Rates Today, April 3, 2026.” https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/mortgage-rates-today-april-3-2026-30-year-refinance-rate-drops-by-18-basis-points/
[5]: Threads / @thejoecastillo. “New tariffs on building materials.” April 4, 2026. https://www.threads.com/@thejoecastillo/post/DWu3wbLDo9Q/
[6]: National Association of Home Builders. Tariff cost estimates per newly constructed home, 2025 survey data. https://www.kitchenbathdesign.com/tariff-exemption-urged-for-building-material-imports
[7]: Construction Owners Association of America. “NYC Tariffs Push Construction Costs Higher.” April 2, 2026. https://www.constructionowners.com/news/nyc-tariffs-push-construction-costs-higher
[8]: CBS News. “Mortgage rates are surging, foiling homebuyers’ best-laid plans.” April 2, 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mortgage-rates-today-housing-iran-war/