Although the South Bay and certainly the Beach Cities were fairly protected from the wave of short sales and bank foreclosures that plummeted prices in other areas of California, there were opportunities out there.  As Redondo Beach is both larger than neighboring Hermosa and Manhattan Beach, and typically caters to more first time home buyers, it felt the foreclosure brunt the most and it wasn’t a challenge to find “deals” on such properties.  Gone may be the days of short sale deals and homes selling below market value, as the inventory of both standard sales, and distressed home sales has continued to decline while demand has grown.  The influx of investors buying up short sale and foreclosures added to the pressure.  As of December 2011 there were 46 active short sales and foreclosures in Redondo Beach and just a year later the inventory was down to 9 distressed sales.  This will likely lead to rising prices as these short sales were the driving factor behind the declining prices over the past few years.