If you own or want to own in the Greater South Bay area of Los Angeles—Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Torrance, San Pedro—your financial future is tied to a simple line on a chart.

The image above is a 3‑month moving average of the weekly average residential sale price in Greater South Bay Area 3, starting in 1991 and running all the way through today. Every spike, dip, and surge represents thousands of real transactions from real buyers and sellers just like you.

And cutting through all of that volatility is a bold red support line—the long‑term path of South Bay home values.

The million‑dollar question:

Will that support line hold, or are we about to break a 15‑year trend?

Miss the answer, and you risk mistiming your next move by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

From the Early 1990s: The “Cheap” South Bay No One Recognizes Anymore

Look back to the far left of the chart. In the early 1990s, the average South Bay home was roughly in the low‑to‑mid $300,000s. That includes neighborhoods in Manhattan Beach, Redondo, Hermosa, Palos Verdes Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills, Torrance, and San Pedro that now routinely see sales well over $2,000,000.

Through the mid‑90s, prices wobbled but didn’t explode. If you bought almost anywhere in the South Bay during that period, today’s chart makes something painfully obvious:

• What felt “expensive” then looks like a once‑in‑a‑lifetime bargain now.

• Sitting on the sidelines in the 90s meant missing out on what would become an unprecedented multi‑decade wealth engine.

That same sense of “it already looks expensive” is echoing again right now—but this time at a very different price level.

The 2000s Run‑Up and the 2008 Reality Check

In the early 2000s, the line starts to arc sharply higher. Tech money, low interest rates, and a growing recognition of the lifestyle premium of beach‑adjacent living pushed South Bay prices up fast.

By the mid‑2000s:

• The average weekly sale price was roughly double the early‑90s levels.

• Multiple‑offer situations and bidding wars became the norm in Manhattan Beach, Hermosa, and key Palos Verdes neighborhoods.

Then came the 2008 financial crisis. The chart shows it clearly: a sharp peak followed by a steep decline. For a period, it looked like the party was over. But here’s what the data actually reveals in hindsight:

• Even after the crash, the long‑term trend line barely blinked.

• Owners who panicked and sold at the bottom locked in losses.

• Owners who held—or selectively bought during the downturn—rode the next powerful leg higher.

Mistiming the market in 2008–2011 was the difference between building equity and watching it evaporate.

2012–2019: A New Floor for South Bay Home Values

Around 2010–2012, something critical happened that your eye can’t ignore: the market carved out a bottom and then never revisited the old lows again. That is exactly where the red support line in the chart begins.

From that point forward:

• Prices recovered, then pushed into new highs.

• The South Bay stopped behaving like a “boom and bust” market and started acting like a high‑demand, limited‑supply blue‑chip asset.

• Each correction pulled back to the red support line, then bounced higher.

If you bought in the early 2010s, today’s values make it clear: that period was the last “reasonable” entry point before the modern South Bay price era began.

2020–2024: The Pandemic Surge and the New Reality

The portion of the chart from 2020 onward almost looks unreal. Driven by ultra‑low interest rates, work‑from‑home shifts, and a global desire for lifestyle and space, the 3‑month moving average of weekly sale prices in the Greater South Bay spiked:

• Average sale prices vaulted past $1,000,000, then $1,400,000, then above $1,600,000.

• High‑end markets like Manhattan Beach and Palos Verdes Estates saw record‑breaking sales.

• Even traditionally more “affordable” neighborhoods in Torrance and San Pedro participated in the surge.

Recently, the line has pulled back from its absolute peak—but here’s the key:

Prices are still sitting dramatically above where they were five, ten, or twenty years ago.

This is not a return to the “good old days” of cheap South Bay homes. The chart is telling you that the floor has moved.

The Red Support Line: Lifeline or Trapdoor?

That red line slicing through the chart from around 2010 to today is more than a drawing—it represents the effective long‑term support of South Bay home values.

For over a decade:

• Every major correction has ultimately respected that uptrend.

• Buyers who trusted the support and bought near it were rewarded.

• Sellers who waited for full‑blown “crashes” that never came were left chasing higher prices.

Right now, the market is testing that line again.

If the support holds:

• Today’s prices may end up looking like the “new 2012”—the last relatively reasonable moment before the next leg higher.

If the support breaks:

• We may be entering the first true structural reset in South Bay pricing since the 2008 era.

Either way, doing nothing and “just seeing what happens” is itself a very expensive decision.

The Follow‑Up Chart: Where the Real Answer Is Hiding

The chart you see now tells the story of where we’ve been. It does not fully answer where we’re going next.

The follow‑up chart I provide to clients—built on this same data set—zooms in on the current period and overlays:

• The red support line with much greater precision,

• Recent volatility and slope changes,

• Signals that historically preceded either powerful bounces higher or deeper corrections.

That second chart is where the real edge is. It is the difference between:

• Selling into strength instead of listing after the market has already rolled over,

• Buying on a high‑probability pullback instead of chasing a late‑cycle surge.

If you are planning to buy or sell in the next 12 months and you do not see that follow‑up chart, you are essentially flying blind while other buyers and sellers are navigating with instruments.

What You Should Be Doing Right Now

Depending on your situation:

• If you own a home in Manhattan Beach, Hermosa, Redondo, Palos Verdes Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills, Rolling Hills Estates, Torrance, or San Pedro:
  
  You need to know whether you’re sitting near a potential peak, a launchpad for the next rally, or a fragile support level. Guessing wrong can cost you six figures in either missed profit or over‑discounted pricing.
  

• If you want to buy in the South Bay:
  
  The worst‑case scenario is not “overpaying by $25,000.” It’s sitting out while the market finds support and then watching the next wave of appreciation price you out entirely.

The data is already in the chart. The advantage goes to the people who actually use it.

How to Act Without Getting “Data Mined”

The last thing most buyers and sellers want is to casually click around listings and suddenly find themselves bombarded by agents, ads, and automated drip campaigns. That is exactly why I created two tools designed to give you an edge without turning you into a marketing target.

At SearchHomesInPrivate.com you can privately browse South Bay homes for sale, homes currently in escrow, closed competitive sales, and upcoming open houses across Manhattan Beach, Hermosa, Redondo, the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Torrance, and San Pedro—without getting data mined. You stay in control of your information while still seeing the same high‑quality, up‑to‑date listing and sales data that drives the chart you’ve just seen.

When you are ready to get more precise, my built‑in automated value model at EquityReportCA.com gives you a detailed, data‑driven estimate of your home’s value and equity position based on real, local sales. It updates with the market, so you can track how close you are to key decision points—whether it is time to sell, trade up, refinance, or hold—using the same kind of objective numbers that power the long‑term price history of the South Bay.