Real Estate Market Updates

Local Real Estate Reporting: Read Between The Lines!

I browsed the local paper today, which took about five minutes. One headline proclaimed “Palm Desert Home Prices Rising.” The story went on to make several broad statements about local real estate that I thought I’d check out. I'll help you here to read between the lines.

• Large numbers of short sale and bank owned homes in La Quinta
• 54% of La Quinta single-family homes sold were distressed properties
• Palm Desert home prices rising and inventory down
• Coachella Valley median price down 8% to $167,500

The Palms Golf Club in La Quinta

Large numbers of short sale and bank owned homes in La Quinta

The majority of La Quinta’s distressed properties continue to be located in La Quinta Cove. ‘The Cove’ offers an eclectic mix of mostly entry-level properties and a large number of Section-8 investor owned rentals.

While some people like the funkiness of the Cove it's not on the short list of shall we say 99.9% of people interested in second homes here in the desert. Of 177 Cove properties sold in six months, 82 were bank-owned at an average sale price of $117,816.

54% of La Quinta single-family homes sold were distressed properties

In the last six months 754 La Quinta homes were sold. 200 of these were bank owned sales. But when we take the Cove (see above paragraph) and any homes that sold at under $200,000 out of the mix, that number drops to 84 or about 11% of the total. Using the same parameters there were only 87 short sales or about 11% of sales in six months.

Palm Desert home prices rising and inventory down

Palm Desert has four zip codes, but the data they used included only 92211. Turn out this zip code includes the active-adult community of Sun City Palm Desert with about 5,000 homes. Home sales at Sun City Palm Desert have been strong for over a year. So have sales in the similar communities of Sun City Shadow Hills in Indio and Trilogy in La Quinta. I’ve been blogging about this for over a year now.

Coachella Valley median price down 8% to $167,500

The median price has little bearing on the vast majority of people looking at buying or selling second homes in the desert. Most buyers want to be located in a gated resort lifestyle community, so the median price is out the window! A better strategy is to look at the average sales price over six months development by development.

Data Source: Desert Area MLS 9/29/11

The Winter of 2011: Great Marketing For Sunny Palm Springs!

Mountain View Country Club, La Quinta

Fortune Magazine reported last April that “people selling second homes in sunny locations couldn’t have asked for a better marketing pitch than the winter of 2011.” To date our personal sales numbers reflect that as we sold 49 properties in the first half of 2011 compared to 49 for the entire year of 2010.

As the stock and financial markets experience another bumpy ride is there anything we can count on? My thinking is we can always count on 350 days of sunshine here in the Palm Springs area over the next 12 months. Winter will be here sooner than later in much of North America and people tell me everyday day that they just want to have a warm place next winter – preferably on the golf course or by the pool.

Photo credit: Sheri Dettman & Associates ©

Palm Springs Area Home Buyers Going Nuts As Sales Increase Again!

La Quinta golf course home patio

Well, maybe our desert homebuyers aren’t actually going nuts but our local sales trends and our sales activity this year seem to be very contrary to what’s going on elsewhere in the country.

Why do you think buyers keep coming to the Palm Springs Real Estate market while most other real estate markets in the U.S. are flat or in decline? I’m going to take a wild guess that maybe it is due to 350 days of sun a year, beautiful desert vistas showcased by two mountain ranges, over 150 golf courses, low housing prices, or a combination of all of the above.

Palm Springs Real Estate Sales Up 6% In May

Fact is home sales in the Coachella Valley rose six percent (6%) in May in contrast to double-digit sales declines in the rest of Southern California and most of the nation. Condo sales were up a whopping 29.2% compared to May of 2010.

It seems that buyers of second homes are fueling the rise in sales. Buyers from other areas of California as well as from throughout the nation and other countries are all contributing to this surge in sales of second homes.

Foreign Buyers Helping To Stroke Desert Home Sales

USA Today reports “foreign buyers are helping to stroke home sales in U.S. vacation spots.” Top buying locations were in Sunbelt areas of Florida, Phoenix and California. Canadian home buyers accounted for the largest share of foreign buyers accounting for 25% of sales followed by Chinese buyers at 9%.

Many buyers are negotiating bargain prices and paying cash rather that choosing to let their money earn low interest rates in banks. For those interested in financing, historically low interest rates are still available.

If you're considering having your own place in the sun next winter, now is a great time to start making your plans. Please don't hesitate to contact me–even with a simple real estate question.

Resale Home Sales Continue To Be A Great Value

Waterfront condos at PGA West in La Quinta

It may surprise you that of the 4,800 homes sold during the first five months of 2011 in the Coachella Valley, only 160 were new construction homes. Do you think price and value had anything to do with these stats?

There are a few communities we identified where new homes are still a good value. Some developers are still able to compete with resale prices and I’m happy to share that information with you. But, in general, we continue to find resale homes and condos to be a better value than newly constructed homes in today’s real estate market.

New Homes Usually Optioned To The Max

In a resale home what you see is usually what you get. All the options and upgrades that the original buyer invested in are usually included. In contrast, new model homes are often optioned to the max and many features are considered extras and not included in the base price of the newly built homes. So, If you choose a new home, you’ll want to be sure that all options and potential extras are spelled out in writing and broken down line by line. My team and I have helped buyers in a number of new home communities at no charge since the seller handles our service fee.

Helping You Discover A Great Home Value

Consider myself and my team as part real estate guide, part number cruncher and part negotiator. We combine these skills on a daily basis to help our buyers discover great values. My team and I view hundreds of homes in dozens of golf and country club communities and non-golf communities every year and we stay up to date on changing home and condo inventory throughout the desert. In short, our job is to help you discover a great value.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me when the time is right – even if you have a simple real estate question.