Golf Communities

Are Luxury Home Sales Here Better Than Expected?

I’m not surprised but you may be. I’ve mentioned this in several of my blogs this year. Luxury home sales (those over $1 million) continue to be fairly substantial. In fact sales of luxury homes here in the desert totaled an impressive $241 million during the last six months!

This almost one quarter billion in sales was the result of 152 luxury properties being sold. Could the coming winter weather for much of North America be helping? How about large discounts on luxury properties or maybe both?

29 Pending Luxury Sales Today
Today our local Desert Area MLS system shows 29 pending sales of desert homes that were listed between $1 million and $4.9 million. The average list price is $1.6 million with an average price per square foot of $367. The average size is 4,869 square feet and these homes range from 2,644 to 25,447 square feet in size.

If you guessed that most of these luxury properties are located in golf and country club communities you’d be correct. Here’s where most of these 29 pending sales are located:

• Andalusia, La Quinta
• Bighorn Golf Club, Palm Desert
• Hideaway Golf Club, La Quinta
• Ironwood Country Club, Palm Desert
• Old Las Palmas, Palm Springs (non golf community)
• PGA West, La Quinta
• Tradition Golf Club, La Quinta
• Toscana Country Club, Indian Wells

Is Brown The New Color For Desert Golf Courses?

I mentioned in my post of October 10th that my team and I were previewing properties at Andalusia in La Quinta. Take a look at my photo here and you’ll see that most of the golf course except for the putting surface looks brown. This is the norm in the desert as each fall our golf courses make a transition from summer to winter grass. This process is called over seeding.

Summer To Winter Grass Over Seeding
To start the over seeding process a golf course stops watering the fairways (not the putting surfaces though) and the summer grass soon goes dormant or brown. The existing summer grass is then cut very low which is called scalping. The last step is applying the winter grass seed and then turning the sprinklers back on.

The new winter grass comes in pretty fast. And even though I’ve seen this process over many years, the rapid transformation from brown to green each fall continues to be pretty cool to see.

We Get Scalped Next Week
Local homeowners with lawns usually have their gardeners complete the same process, of course on a much smaller scale than the golf courses. Our gardener will be starting our own lawn over seeding next week and he’ll be planting our winter flowers this month as well.

And come next summer when our desert temps heat up, this winter grass will be taken over by the dormant summer grass, with no scalping required.

Hideaway Golf Club La Quinta Sales Update

Home sales at Hideaway Golf Club in La Quinta so far this year are running slightly ahead of 2010. Year-to-date in 2011 a total of 15 homes have sold versus 14 during the same period last year.

Custom lot sales at Hideaway this year are well ahead of last year with 24 sales so far in 2011 versus 17 lots sold during all of 2010. This seems to reflect buyers taking advantage of bargain prices averaging $286,833, down from an average sale price of $454,372 in ’10.

Sun City Shadow Hills Sales Update

Home sales at Sun City Shadow Hills, an active-adult community (55 or better) in Indio continue to show increases this year. During the last six months 93 homes sold in Sun City Shadow Hills. That compares with 77 home sold during the same six-month period of 2010. Buyers seem to be continuing to take advantage of good values.

Sales of homes at Shadow Hills overt these past six months have ranged from $162,000 up to a high of $650,000. The lowest sale price last year during this same six month time period was $159,000 so Shadow Hills entry pricing seems to have moved up a bit in the last year.

As of today there are 83 active listings at Sun City Shadow Hills. This may sound like a lot of inventory until you consider that the Shadow Hills community is master planned for 3,200 homes at completion. This works out to a 5.3 month supply of home inventory at the current sales rates, which is well below the national and the Palm Springs area average. This continues to reflect a strong demand for value priced property in the desert.

PGA West La Quinta Sales Update: Bank Owned Homes

I was looking at available PGA West home and condo inventory today and frankly I was surprised. PGA West is a large resort lifestyle community with about 1,400 homes and condos and there was only four bank owned properties available today!

One of these properties is a fractional ownership property at The Residence Club (sorry we won’t go there!) so really just three bank-owned properties priced from $299,900 to $439,900. Two others are pending sales (in escrow) up to $949,900. This led me to do some further digging.

At PGA West in the last six months there have only been 15 bank-owned sales total. The average REO (Real Estate Owned is the industry term for bank owned property) at PGA West sold for $467,259. The high sale was $845,000 and the low $150,000.

Are Banks Pricing PGA West Properites Correctly?
Bank owned properties at PGA West seem to be priced right as five of the 15 properties sold within 30-days at 100% of the listing price. The other homes sold from between 91.25% and 96.14% of list prices depending on the price range and time on market.

During this same six-month period 92 homes and condo total were sold at PGA West, which translates into only 15% of the total being REO’s. This is well down from 33% about a year ago. If you’re wondering about short sales, only 12 properties sold as short sales sold during this same time period.

Only 17 Bank Owned Homes In Desert Golf Communities

Many people may think that there is a glut of bank owned properties on the market and in some areas of the country (think La Vegas and Phoenix) that’s true. Because homes and condos in golf course communities are so popular in the desert I decided to take inventory of recent bank owned sales in these golf communities.

Checking our Palm Springs area MLS today I found that there are only 17 bank owned homes priced at $400,000 and above. 17 homes is a miniscule amount of home and condo inventory considering the total size of these golf communities!

Palm Springs Area Golf Community Bank Owned Homes For Sale

• Avondale Golf Club, Palm Desert: 1 $609,900
• Andalusia at Coral Mountain, La Quinta: 1 @ $849,900
• Bighorn Golf Club, Palm Desert: 1 @ $1,495,000
• Desert Horizons Country Club, Indian Wells: 1 @ $699,900
• Hideaway Golf Club, La Quinta: 1 @ $1,624,500
• Ironwood Country Club, Palm Desert: 1 @ $529,900
• La Quinta Resort Spa Villas: 1 @ $554,900
• Palm Valley Golf Club, Palm Desert: 1 @ $429,900
• PGA West, La Quinta: 2 @ $419,900 & $439,900
• Rancho La Quinta Country Club: 3 @ $807,500, $898,600 & $455,000
• Tahquitz Creek Golf Resort, Palm Springs: 1 @ $799,999
• The Reserve, Palm Desert: 1 @ $1,950,000
• Tradition Golf Club, La Quinta: 1 @ $2,650,000
• Toscana Country Club, Indian Wells: 1 @ $1,025,000

If you'd like information on any of these bank owned properties please email Sheri today.

Trilogy La Quinta Home Sales Update

Trilogy at La Quinta is an active-adult community with 1,200 homes, public golf and low monthly HOA dues, which include numerous social, fitness and sports activities.

Trilogy at La Quinta home sales, are outpacing last years sales. During the last six months there have been 47 Trilogy homes sold compared to 42 during the same six-month period of 2010. The average Trilogy at La Quinta sale price is $427,025 up slightly from $422,030 last year.

The average price paid per square foot for a Trilogy home has increased to $206 per square foot versus $200 per square foot during the same time period last year. Of these 42 sales only six were bank-owned homes while seven sales were completed as short sales.

Current Trilogy La Quinta Listings
There are currently 72 homes listed for sale at Trilogy of which two are bank owned properties and seven are short sale listings. This equates to a roughly 6.13 month supply of Trilogy inventory, below the national average of 9.5 months supply of homes.

Jump over to our Trilogy at La Quinta page here for more information.

Bighorn Golf Club, Palm Desert Sales Update

Last month I posted a blog entry about Super Luxury Properties Sales (those selling at $2 million and greater) in the desert. The gist of the article was that the average sales price of super-luxury properties had increased slightly from $3.0 to $3.1 million over the last year. Today, I compared sales at Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert for the most recent six months compared to the same six month period last year.

Bighorn Golf Club Property Sales Last Six Months

• 2011: 7 Homes sold / Highest Sale $3.4 million
• 2010: 4 Homes sold / Highest Sale $5.5 million
• 2011 Average sale price per square foot was $650 versus $576 in 2010

Seeing a sales increase over last year and a higher average sale price per square foot are both good indicators for property sales at Bighorn Golf Club. The average home sold at Bighorn during the recent six months was 4,681 square feet.

Bighorn Golf Club is a prestigious golf and country club community located in the foothills above of Palm Desert. Please don’t hesitate to contact me to arrange a private tour of Bighorn or to view available Bighorn properties.

Source: Desert Area MLS® as of 9/14/2011