Yesterday's headline news in The Desert Sun trumpeted the home-sale figures I glean on a daily basis when perusing the MLS sales and corroborated the numbers I hear when attending my weekly Windermere La Quinta meetings. Sales in the past four weeks alone amounted to almost $18M and that's just one Windermere office. Spring home sales in the Coachella Valley are up 7 percent this first quarter of 2011.
Here's the article summarizing the state of the Palm Springs valley market:
"While the rest of Southern California slumped, home sales rose 7 percent in the Coachella Valley in the first three months of 2011, propelled by a surge in closings in March.
Home sales rose 3.2 percent in March in the valley compared to March 2010, San Diego-based DataQuick Information Systems reported Tuesday.
DataQuick said 1,104 homes sold in the valley in March, up from 848 in February and 727 in January.
That is in contrast to sales declines of 7.5 percent in Riverside County in March, 13.9percent in San Bernardino County and 5.2 percent across all of Southern California.
It was the second month in a row that an increase in valley home sales bucked the state and national trends.
“I think the desert is doing extremely well,” said Harvey Katofsky, CEO of HK Lane in Palm Desert. “We're all pretty excited about what's going on in the market.”
Katofsky and other Realtors said snowbirds and especially Canadians have been driving the sales. Sales of condominiums, a favorite of second- home buyers, spiked 23 percent over a year ago, with prices down a relatively modest 5.4 percent.
The weak dollar means Canadians are getting more for their money and the Canadian economy has remained fairly resistant to the worst of the U.S. economic downturn.
Katofsky's agents set a sales record in January, then broke it in February and again in March. He reported stronger high-end sales in La Quinta, and better overall sales in cities such as Indian Wells and in Palm Desert.
In the Palm Desert 92211 ZIP code, sales rose 9 percent and prices were up 3.4 percent, one of the few areas in the valley with higher prices than a year ago.
More than 200 homes sold in Palm Springs last month, 182 sold in Palm Desert, 138 in La Quinta and 101 in Indio, DataQuick reported.
Jim Franklin, president of the Palm Springs Regional Association of Realtors, said the valley is still largely a second- home market where sales are driven by retirees and the affluent.
Across Southern California, slow job growth, foreclosures, difficulty getting loans and a continued wait-and-see attitude are among factors inhibiting sales, said John Walsh, DataQuick president.
But DataQuick also reported Tuesday that the number of California foreclosures in the first quarter fell 2.2 percent from the prior quarter and 15.8 percent from the first quarter of 2010.
The total number of foreclosure filings, 68,239, was the lowest number since 2007.
Katofsky said lenders seem to be loosening up a bit, and as interest rates trend upward, banks are concentrating more on new loans because refinancing transactions are dropping off.
The valley's median price — half sold for more, half for less — was $200,000 in March, down 2.9 percent from a year ago.
But it was the same as February and up from $181,250 in January, DataQuick reported.
The median price for homes in Riverside County was $198,000 last month, the same as March 2010. In Southern California the median price was $280,500, down 1.6 percent from $285,000 a year ago, DataQuick reported.
The California Association of Realtors reported the statewide median price in March fell 4.9 percent compared to a year ago. Sales fell 2.4 percent."
Spring has sprung here in the Coachella Valley desert and my weekly hiking explorations find me constantly snapping photos of exquisite blooms.
I will happily make time to find you the perfect desert pied a terre if you're interested in owning a home here in our world-renown valley. Check out my website for updated bargain-priced homes, foreclosures and short sales.
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