Sales Stats for South La Quinta by Community

Here are some sales figures for all 71 comunities in South La Quinta for the six months ending October 31, 2010. These figures represent all sales including foreclosures, short sales and resales. The first page includes a graph of sales from 1998 through October 2010 as compared to the historical annual 4.5% appreciation rate. You can clearly see the “Bubble: and how we have progressed beyond it. The next page has a graph which shows monthly sales figures for 2009 1nd 2010.

The third and fourth pages show sales information for the 71 communities that make up South La Quinta in our Multiple Listing Service (MLS) sorted by: community Name, Number of Homes Sold, Average Sale Price and Average Price per Square Foot.

Click the link below to view the report.

South LQ Sales 10-31-2010

The smoking deal you’ve asked for, now where are you?

Everybody wants the smoking deal AFTER it’s gone.

It’s ALWAYS the case.  We just put a home into escrow and got 3 calls immediately afterward. Two of these callers were ready to submit an offer. I’m not sure why this happens… maybe Murphy’s law, or maybe because people want something that they can’t have.

Anyway, here’s the latest smoking deal that just fell out of escrow. And this isn’t just a “deal”, this is a stupid-rock-bottom-oh-my-gosh-how-good-can-you-get kind of deal.

Here are the details for 78840 Lima:
* 3909 sqft custom home in the Citrus.
* HOA Dues only $243/month for a private, golf course community.
* Detached 2 room Casita (and 3 bedrooms in main house).
* Front loaded private courtyard with custom pool and spa.
* Purchase price = $725,000 or $186/sqft. (Shortsale but we can get immediate approval.)

There are MULTIPLE comps that have sold across the street from this property within the past 6 months for over $250/sqft.  The purchase price of these similar sized homes was $1,000,000 and $1,050,000. They both needed A LOT of work – much more work than this property needs. And this home does have the modern upgrades that most buyers look for like granite countertops, high ceilings and french doors that open up on both sides of the house.

So, what’s the problem?
The problem with this home is that it doesn’t show well.  Its structure is very sound, but the interior is all white, the furniture and draperies need updating as do the hardware (like ceiling fans, door knobs and faucets).  The toughest thing for me to get over, as the agent, is that this stuff is all so minimal when you compare it to the normal “fixer” property, which everybody says they’re looking for!  The normal fixer typically needs structural improvements and major rehab work.  Just adding darker color paint would improve this baby by leaps and bounds.  Even though it’s a shortsale, the owner has still maintained the interior and exterior of the property including the pool and spa.

The hardest thing for 95% of buyers is to see potential of what a home can be, and unfortunately this deal will get passed by for many buyers for that reason.  However, I know how it works… all the calls will roll in after it’s taken. I guess that’s how it goes, but this is a plea to the one person that reads this: consider this your warning!  🙂

And if you’re still not convinced, here’s the last fact: When the owner built this home in 1997, he spent over $800,000 in building cost alone (not counting the cost of the land). The price is now $725,000 for everything! And no, this is not an indication that prices are back to 1994… They are only in this case.

Here’s a link to the listing.

October 10 Price Report

Here are the latest sales numbers for all homes sold within the City of La Quinta as well as all Golf Course homes in La Quinta through October, 2010. 
City of La Quinta home sales by month since January 2008*  

The blue lines represent 2008 data, the orange lines represent 2009 data and the magenta lines represent 2010 data.

As Fall approaches, we see signs of the seasonal increase of the La Quinta home sales for October after what seemed like a very long, hot summer. Sales Showed a marked increase in October over September but only a slight increase over October 2009. were lower in September than August and for the second time since June, 2009, lower than the same month a year earlier. Open escrows in October rose 3.1% which is obviously a good thing not terribly surprising as we move in the seasinal sales cycle. Consumer confidence, which seemed to have turned into a wait and see attitude seems to also be on the rise. Prices seem to be stabilizing in the under $1,000,000 market. Although the above $1,000,000 market has not seen the improvement of the under $1m market, year-to-date sales of $1m+ homes in 2010 amounts to 11.7% of the total as compared to 9.5% for the calendar year of 2009. The general attitude of the people we talk to at open houses is that the market has hit the bottom and that is backed up by current prices versus historical appreciation. 

 
Golf Course home sales in La Quinta  

The sales-volume numbers in the higher-end market (which contains many of the golf properties in the chart above) have improved even more than the total with the arrival of the season. The average price per square foot dropped 14% in October over September’s 2% rise.

Overall, we are still seeing positive signs in the market place. There has been a steady increase in activity since Labor Day and more noticibly since the bigginning of November. The mortgage industry is the best it’s ever been for conventional loans but the “jumbo” loans, although becomming more available, continue to be a stumbling block in the higher end market.

La Quinta Inventory:
On October 31, there were 5,774 active listings, 1,897 units in escrow totalling 7671 units available for sale which makes 27% of the total in Escrow.

 If buying property is something on your list (especially golf property), why not take advantage of the incredible prices and seller incentives now, when sellers will work with you, instead of in the future, when the demand starts to catch up with the supply? Especially if you’re buying and planning to hold for 5+ years.

 Here are some yearly sales figures (units) for the City of La Quinta from 2002:

Year

All

LQ Golf Course

2002

1,354

259

2003

1,565

652

2004

1,931

813

2005

1,553

657

2006

1,098

491

2007

935

447

2008

1,063

416

2009

1,155

418

2010 YTD

1,087

455 (Oct)