La Quinta Communities – Page 2 – Gallaudet Properties

April 10, 2015

Featured Community: PGA West

PGA West is a special association, located on over 2,200 acres in sunny La Quinta, California. Within the PGA West association there are 7 separate gated communities which look out onto six different championship golf courses, with both public and private options for golf lovers. The courses were designed by 5 different golf legends including Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Weiskopf, Greg Norman and renowned course designer Pete Dye. Within the PGA West gates there are three clubhouses (two public and one private), all offering dining options with spectacular views of the signatures courses and the Santa Rosa Mountains.

Within the private clubhouse there is the Health and Racquet Club which offers 19 tennis courts with Har-Tru Clay, hard and grass surfaces. In addition, the private Fitness center features state of the art Cardio and Aerobic machines, free weights, strength and conditioning classes, Yoga, Pilates, and personal training.

With about 3,000 homes in the community, home buyers have a wide variety of pricing and style from which to choose. Homes range in price from $200,000 condominiums up to $3,000,000 single-family estates. This number includes the last two developments that developers have recently opened: Alta Verde at Coral Mountain, offering 130 modern styled homes with Balinese influence including the newest sustainable technology and design available, and The Signature at PGA West, comprised of 230 Spanish styled condominiums, homes and estates centrally located in PGA West.

There are three membership options: Social, Sport and Golf. The golf memberships have different options– One option allows play on the 3 Citrus Membership courses as well as the 6 PGA West courses. There are many incentives to join the Club which can be discussed with the PGA West Membership Directors.

Currently at PGA West there are 202 homes and condominiums for sale. The Residence Club is another option at PGA West that is not included in the 7 communities mentioned, and is a wonderful opportunity for the buyer who really can’t enjoy the Desert for long periods of time, due to work schedules or other personal reasons. It offers fractional ownership in each home (one quarter or one ninth), with residence ownerships available from $139,000 to $194,000.

As you can see, there are many options available at PGA West. A great spot in La Quinta, California.

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March 20, 2015

Are You Ready for a Tour Event?

If you’re a golfer, how would you like to play in a tour event?

Confession time: I’m not talking about the PGA tour, I’m talking about the annual La Quinta Summer Golf Tour. Last year it was held from the end of May through August and players were able to enjoy 13 weeks of golf on some of the finest courses in the Coachella Valley.

Included in last year’s lineup of courses were the Escena Golf Club, Eagle Falls, Classic Club, Indian Wells Country Club, and Desert Willow, among others. To “join” the tour it only cost $69 plus the weekly green fees.

Play new courses
Avid golfers in La Quinta, Indian Wells, and the greater Palm Springs area often enjoy their home courses so much, they don’t get around to some of the other fantastic golf and country clubs. The La Quinta Summer Golf Tour is the ideal vehicle to find your next favorite course.

The tour ends with a banquet where plaques are awarded to the top finalists in both the single and team divisions. Of course, many golfers participate just for the fun, exercise, experience and opportunity to make new friends. I should add that if you have friends or family visiting you, they can jump into the week’s tour event for a nominal fee and play a course they might not otherwise get onto.

Where else could golfers play a 13-week local summer “tour,” never play the same course twice, and never have to venture far from home? Players who sign up for the La Quinta Summer Golf Tour certainly see a wide variety of courses, but even after the 13 weeks are over, there are many more courses to explore in the Coachella Valley.

Our free golf resource guide
The best way to see a complete list of courses, their locations and relative costs in terms of memberships as well as neighboring real estate, is to download our free golf resource guide. As much as we love AAA maps and guides, and the map apps on our smartphones, our golf course guide is still the best way to get an overview of our area.

And if you live here in La Quinta and participate on the summer tour, you have a distinct advantage that pro golfers are unable to enjoy on their tour: You can return to your own home each night after the day’s golf and relax in real comfort. And if you want to hone your swing the next day to get ready for the following week’s competition, you can play a few rounds on your home course or another nearby course.

At La Quinta Resort, for example, there are three courses, two that are public along with one private course. And with 10 gated residential communities spanning these courses, your options in homes are incredible.

We would be privileged to introduce you to these communities as well as other wonderful neighborhoods and have the opportunity to answer your questions. So please, download our guide, look it over and then give us a call.

That summer tournament is getting closer every day.

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March 13, 2015

Featured Community: Mountain View Country Club

Mountain View Country Club in La Quinta was developed in 2004 by Toll Brothers. The Spanish Colonial designed community consists of 376 homes and 50 condominiums with prices of these homes ranging from $600,000 to $1,500,000. The condominiums range from $400,000 to $550,000.

Mountain View Country Club Clubhouse — Clubhouse Patio

The 13,880 square foot clubhouse is beautifully designed in La Quinta’s Spanish Colonial architecture with main restaurant and private dining for up to 20, Golf Pro Shop, Cantina, Mens and Womens locker rooms and bag storage. The main restaurant hosts weekly Wine Wednesday and “Fresh to Table” menu Friday evenings and Jazz Brunch on Sunday. The Cantina opens daily in season. The fitness center features state of the art Cardio and Aerobic machines, free weights, strength and conditioning classes, Yoga, Pilates, and personal training. A lap pool and whirlpool spa are there for a relaxing afternoon. The onsite spa provides over 30 different treatments for facials and massage, steam rooms and locker facilities. There are 4 lit tennis courts with singles and doubles clubs and tennis clinics with the club’s tennis pro.

Mountain View Country Club Golf Course — Golf Course

The Par 72, 18-hole championship course is an Arnold Palmer Signature design with multiple sets of tees to challenge all levels of skill players and incorporates a full practice range with separate chipping and putting areas. Golf membership to this beautiful club and course is an initial fee of $75,000, 80% of which is refundable upon leaving. The monthly dues are $999.00, and those include social membership as well. If only a social membership is desired, that cost is $408.50/month and is included when a home is purchased in the community. This is a totally private club, and therefore the social membership can only be gotten through the purchase of a home. The social membership includes full use of Club facilities, Clubhouse, Dining, Social Events, Tennis Courts and Fitness and Spa Facility.

Currently at Mountain View Country Club there are 37 homes and 6 condominiums for sale. Most homes include pools and spas, and are on the golf course.

For more information about Mountain View Country Club and other golf course communities in our Desert, please download our free golf resource guide where you can easily find and compare golf membership deposits, monthly dues, and real estate prices! Simply click the button below.

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February 23, 2015

What Will It Be Today, 8 Chukkas or 18 Holes?

Where can you find horses, wedding parties, golf carts and pop music stars?

There aren’t too many places on the planet where those groups come together but here in the Coachella Valley we are blessed with the Empire Polo Club in Indio.

Established in 1987, the Empire Polo Club has a dozen grass polo fields, an indoor polo arena, stables, exercise tracks, the Tack Room Tavern, beautiful venues for weddings, and a lot more.

If you’ve never watched a polo match, you need to make it out there. It’s a great spectator sport and you can really enjoy the company your with during the event. The horses are incredible athletes and it’s great to see how the players work with their steeds. The games are divided into eight seven-minute chukkas and typically last two hours. And if you want to do more than just watch, there are a variety of ways to learn polo at the club.

More than polo
Now, what about golf carts and pop music stars? Well, for those of us who don’t ride, Empire Polo Club has occasional sessions of golf cart polo. If you’re a golfer you know you’ve been dying to take a whack at a little white ball while you were barreling down the fairway. Here’s your chance!

And regarding the pop music stars, the Empire Polo Club is the site of the world famous Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The event stretches over two weekends and in 2015 the dates are April 10-12 and April 17-19. Around this time of year, fans of the event start watching for the festival organizers to announce the lineup.

Performers as big as Paul McCartney, Amy Winehouse, the Black Keys and Jay-Z have appeared in prior years. Every type of pop music is represented from rock, to indie, to electronica and hip hop. And all of this happens on an expanse of beautiful green grass where horses would be running around most other days. It’s a very unique place.

Golf reigns supreme
But we know that in La Quinta, Palm Springs, Indian Wells and even Indio, there is a somewhat more popular sport that involves hitting a hard white ball around a grassy expanse (hopefully!) and that’s golf. Since the history of polo dates back to the sixth century BC, it’s been around far longer than golf, whose origins go back a mere 700 years in comparison.

However, there’s no doubt about which is more popular today and that’s why we offer a free Golf Resource Guide and not a guide to polo fields. And if you haven’t yet downloaded our guide, we encourage you to take advantage of our offer.

It’s a great way to get a feel for how all the golf courses in La Quinta, Indian Wells and the general Palm Springs area relate to all the communities where you might consider buying a golf course home.

We have also included information on the relative costs of country club memberships as well as real estate prices. For many, owning a home on or near great courses such as The Tradition, PGA West, The Citrus Club, and others is a dream come true.

We’re in the business of helping people realize those dreams, so if you would like additional information or have more questions after you’ve looked over our guide, please give us a call, we’d love to help out.

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February 18, 2015

La Quinta, CA Real Estate analysis 2014 Year End

The City of La Quinta, unit sales for year 2014 are 16.6% lower than 2013. As you can see from the graph below, each month in 2014 fell behind the same month of the previous year. The fourth quarter of 2014 was the worst with 26.75% less sales than the third quarter of 2013. During 2014, we have had a very tight inventory of homes for sale which is a major contributor to the decrease in sales this year.

The 4th quarter of 2014 was the worst quarter for La Quinta since 2007. The quarter that recently ended recorded La Quinta sales of 230 homes, a drop of 26.75% over the same quarter in 2013 (314). Just to keep this in perspective, 2013 was the best year since the “bubble” burst in 2006.

What we have noticed here in the Coachella Valley was that during the late fall of 2013 and the first quarter of 2014 there was a noticeable increase in the number of American buyers most likely based on the slight improvement in the US economy and a decrease in Canadian buyers most likely based on the devaluation of the Canadian dollar. The number of buyers at that time, coupled with a very low inventory, caused prices to begin to rise substantially in many developments. Toward the beginning of the second quarter, there seemed to be a change in buyer attitude. The Canadian dollar kept declining against the US dollar and the number of American buyers decreased reducing the demand causing prices to level off and even declined slightly. This malaise which has been caused by the tight inventory, and the investors not liking the increase in pricing, has malingered for the rest of the year. We are hoping that after the election and as we enter the selling season, we will see more inventory and then sales again pick up.

This is a graph of the Real Estate “Bubble”. The red line represents the normal historical Real Estate appreciation rate of 4.5%

Here are some yearly sales figures (units) for the City of La Quinta from 2002:
Year – All LQ – Golf Course
2002 – 1,356 – 259
2003 – 1,572 – 640
2004 – 1,938 – 785
2005 – 1,563 – 638
2006 – 1,118 – 483
2007 – 942 – 444
2008 – 1,076 – 405
2009 – 1,202 – 409
2010 – 1,360 – 518
2011 – 1,446 – 510
2012 – 1,532 – 587
2013 – 1,537 – 567
2014 – 1,282 – 576

* Remember that the sales numbers represent “Closed” escrows. Since the average escrow is between 45 and 60 days, the decision to purchase the homes that closed in June was probably made in March to early April.

For more information about the Coachella Valley Real Estate market, Please call us at (760) 203-2621!

Source: DesertAreaMLS

February 12, 2015

The Citrus Club in La Quinta!

The Citrus Club in La Quinta is the private club of the famous La Quinta Resort and Club which when established in 1926 became a mecca for the rich and famous. The Private Citrus Club was conceived and established much later, in 1988. Since then the surrounding community has grown to 576 homes developed by 9 different builders. That number also includes 73 custom homes. Prices of these homes range from $600,000 to $2,500,000.

Because the Citrus is the private club of the La Quinta Resort, the membership opportunities are unique. Whether it be the Social, Sport, or the Golf Membership that is desired, included are all the amenities at the Resort in addition to those at The Citrus. These additional privileges include: tennis (known as one of the best programs in the Desert with 23 courts including 5 har-tru clay courts), the beautiful state of the art spa, the fitness center (in addition to the one at the Citrus), member discounts on dining and shopping at the Resort (that includes three restaurants in addition to the Mountain Clubhouse), and 42 pools all around the Resort. With the golf membership also included are the two Resort courses, the Mountain and Dunes, as well as the private Citrus course.

The Citrus Club’s (15,000) square foot full-service Fitness Center is state of the art. It features high quality cardio and strength training machines as well as a spacious classroom for innovative regularly scheduled classes including Zumba, Tai Chi, Pilates and Yoga, and an outdoor lap pool.

Currently at The Citrus there are 35 homes for sale. Most homes include pools and spas, and are on the golf course. The course was designed by Pete Dye and the practice range is considered to be one of the most spectacular in the Desert. There are 3 parks in the Citrus, all with waterfalls, lakes and nice walking trails.

For more information about The Citrus Club and other golf course communities in our Desert, please download our free golf resource guide where you can easily find and compare golf membership deposits, monthly dues, and real estate prices! Simply click the button below.

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January 30, 2015

Featured Community: Rancho La Quinta Country Club

This is the first in a series of descriptive blogs on individual Desert Golf Course Communities in our area. Each week we will be featuring a different community.

This weeks featured community is Rancho La Quinta Country Club.

Rancho La Quinta Country Club is a luxury golf and tennis community of 980 homes established by T.D. Desert Development in 1994 on over 700 acres in La Quinta, California. There are approximately 60 homes currently on the market, ranging from $500,000 to $2,000,000.

The Country Club is comprised of two world class golf courses designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr and Jerry Pate. The courses have previously hosted the PGA Tour’s ever popular “Skins Game” and have recently changed over from “Bentgrass” to “Bermuda” grass to better serve golfers in the desert climate. The 23,000 square foot clubhouse has a main dining room, private dining room, full service clubroom/bar, men’s and women’s locker rooms, Pro Shop and “The Turn” for a quick bite for golfers.

The property also has a premier Racquet Club and Pool complex with 9 lighted courts including 2 clay courts as well as stadium seating on center court. The Racquet Club features a Tennis Shop, men’s and women’s locker rooms, a fitness center with state-of-the-art exercise equipment offering Kinetix Health & Performance Center services including certified personal trainers, fitness classes, nutrition counseling, physical therapy, massage therapy and spa treatments. In addition, The Racquet Club features “The Cantina” for breakfast, lunch and dinner service. Patio dining is also available courtside or poolside. The main pool at The Racket Club is a Junior Olympic size. Additionally there are several community pools and spas located throughout the community. The Racquet Club coordinates very popular leagues for Bocce Ball and Pickleball.

Rancho La Quinta Country Club is one of many golf clubs mentioned in our Golf Resource Guide. This guide outlines golf club prices, locations and home price ranges.

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January 26, 2015

What will it be today? Golf, pickleball or both?

Over the last few years I’ve been hearing more and more about pickleball. It’s definitely a sport that is gaining a lot of players here in La Quinta, Palm Desert, Palm Springs and the greater Coachella Valley, and that seems to reflect a growing interest all around the country. According to Tennis Club Business Magazine, pickleball is growing faster than any other sport in the country.

An abundance of courts
It’s a sport that’s played with paddles and combines elements of tennis, squash and table tennis. The court is smaller than a tennis court (the size of a double badminton court) and often pickleball is played on adapted tennis courts. There are a lot of dedicated players in our area and one pickleball court directory listed 11 places to play in Palm Desert alone! In La Quinta, there are pickleball courts at PGA West.

To give you an idea of how quickly this sport is catching on, one survey of some local tennis courts found that over about a one-month period, 234 pickleball players used the courts compared to 54 tennis players.

The sport gives players a great workout and is a lot of fun while at the same time it’s a bit easier on the body. It started out as a backyard game for kids, then became popular with older players and now there are national competitive divisions for virtually every age group.

Ideal for socializing
Its increased popularity up and down the Palm Springs area is testimony to the active lifestyle here: If you participate in a sport, you’ll find plenty of people to play with when you have a home in La Quinta or any of the surrounding communities. Of course, sports like this are always great ways to meet people and make new friends.

Historically, that social quality has been one of golf’s greatest attributes. Not only is the sport a wonderful way to get some exercise and enjoy the outdoors, golf provides a time when friends and family can enjoy one another’s company and perhaps engage in some good-humored competition. (I also need to mention that by most accounts, pickleball was invented by a couple of golfers who wanted to create something that their kids could enjoy.)

Our Free Golf Course Guide
I’ve told you where some pickleball courts are, but if you want to see the relative location of golf courses here, you need to download our Golf Resource Guide. You’ll get the “lay of the land” as it relates to all the great courses plus the towns and neighborhoods where you would enjoy living. These include communities like The Mountain Estates, The Enclave, La Quinta Resort Spa Villas, Los Estados, Puerta Azul, Santa Rosa Cove and many more.

Browsing our guide, you’ll see that golf courses including Mountain View Country Club, PGA West, The Hideaway, The Tradition, The Citrus Club, The Palms Golf Club, Silver Rock Golf Resort and many other fabled courses are always nearby. Our guide lays them all out for you so you can get the ideal overview.

When it’s time to go beyond an “overview” and get into the specifics of what best suits your needs, we’re here to answer your questions and help you focus your search. We would be privileged to serve you.

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January 9, 2015

The Winner Is: Award Season in Palm Springs!

Check out at this lineup of celebrities: Reese Witherspoon, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Keaton, Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, Brad Pitt and Robert Downey, Jr.

It looks like every supermarket tabloid editor’s dream for front page hot gossip news stories, doesn’t it?

Actually, these notables were among the glitterati who recently attended the Palm Springs International Film Festival gala awards festivities at the Palm Spring Convention Center. My husband and I were fortunate to be among the attendees as well, so we got a good dose of star exposure that evening.

Attendance is up
As with many events staged in Palm Springs, La Quinta and the general Coachella Valley area, the film festival awards evening has grown significantly since it started back in 2002. Festival Chairman Harold Matzner told us that night that only 200 people attended the first awards gala. This year, there were 2,400 of us in the audience.

You may have seen some of the winning films throughout the evening. Among the titles honored were “Gone Girl,” “Selma,” “Whiplash,” “The Judge,” “Boyhood,” “Still Alice,” “The Theory of Everything,” “Birdman,” “The Imitation Game” and “Wild.”

If you’re a film buff at all, take a close look at that list. You may want to try to see any you have missed. The Palm Springs International Film Festival is the first movie awards event of the year and many times what happens here gives us a clue as to which actors, directors and producers will be walking away with Oscars in their hands later in the season.

January is a busy time
Events on the desert often foreshadow things that occur throughout the year. I don’t know if the film festival organizers selected January in the Coachella Valley because our weather is so nice, but I do know that the professional golfers roll into town this time of year because of the climate.

This year the Humana Challenge in partnership with the Clinton Foundation comes to PGA West and La Quinta Country Club from January 19-25. This was formerly the Bob Hope Classic. I know that our local golfers are anxious to see how the pros look at the beginning of the season.

Will Tiger Woods get back to form? As I write this it’s not known exactly who will play, but one favorite – Phil Mickelson – has said that he’ll be in La Quinta for sure. Last year the Humana field of players ended up claiming 20 PGA Tour titles, including the golfer who won the FedExCup title – Billy Horschel!

As I close today’s article, I want to reflect on how wonderful it is to live in a place where you can attend an event with the celebrities I mentioned in my opening and then play a round of golf on a course that will soon host pros like Phil Mickelson battling it out for their share of a $5.7 million purse.

Live where the pros play
Not only that, you can live in the communities that surround the PGA West and La Quinta CC. And, if you’re familiar with La Quinta, Indian Wells and Coachella Valley real estate, you know that the offerings range far wider than those two. For example, the La Quinta Resort has three great courses and several communities.

The best way to give yourself an introduction to the courses and the communities is to download our free guide to Palm Springs Area Golf Clubs. You’ll see all the courses, towns and communities, as well as restaurants and other notable commercial areas. The guide also include some relative pricing information, for both homes and memberships.

Of course, it’s just a start. When you want to learn more, give us a call and we can answer all your questions.

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December 8, 2014

Indoor-Outdoor Design Ideas From a Stellar La Quinta Home

When a La Quinta estate was recently listed for $39.5 million it became the most expensive home for sale in the Coachella Valley – and no, I didn’t accidentally misplace the decimal in that figure. The property is listed for $5.5 million more than what is being asked for Bob and Dolores Hope’s historic John Lautner-designed home, which is priced at $34 million. If you are wanting to design your own house to make it unique and have everything you need then visit Aveling Homes.

However, I’m not bringing this up to start a discussion of real estate prices and market conditions. Tom does a good job covering that territory on these pages. What I like about these high profile homes for sale is that we learn a lot about the special touches owners have designed and built into their ultra-expensive homes. These can serve as inspiration for all of us.

If you follow any design blogs, magazines or television shows, you’ll often encounter discussions of “bringing the outside in” and creating “outdoor living spaces.” Homes in the Palm Springs area, La Quinta, Indian Wells and the rest of the Coachella Valley are ideal for incorporating these design concepts. There may not be anywhere in the world that is better suited to blurring the line between indoor and outdoor living.

Indoor-outdoor living for everyone
Most of the elements that “bring the outside in” are well within the reach of many home buyers. One of the most striking features of this nearly $40 million home are its expansive windows that bring views of the San Jacinto Mountains into the living space. Fortunately, you can get great mountain views at a significantly lower price. And do you know what: they are the same mountains for everyone!

Another feature in this expensive home that we see often in properties here is an atrium. With all the sun we get in La Quinta and the valley, an atrium is a wonderful feature and if you have one in your home you can even grow various palm trees indoors. That doesn’t just blur the line between the indoors and outdoors, it erases it.

Another feature included in this luxury estate is an outdoor, wood-fired pizza oven. These are becoming very popular and they can transform your outdoor entertaining. Fortunately, you can burn off the extra calories you consume eating your homemade gourmet pizzas the next day on the golf course.

The ultimate outdoor feature
For many homeowners in La Quinta and the neighboring communities, the ultimate way to bring the outdoors inside is to have their living space open up to a landscaped patio-lawn-pool-spa area, also fancy units of decking construction LA – that backs up to a golf course. That’s the quintessential image of golf course living and in our area there are so many great properties to choose from that are in that category.

Download our free golf resource guide and look for some of these: The Tradition, PGA West, Mountain View, Rancho La Quinta, The Citrus, The Hideaway, Indian Ridge, The Reserve and others. Also, spend some time using the search feature on our website.

Once you think you’re beginning to get a good overview of property and golf courses in La Quinta and the general Palm Springs area, call us and we can fill in some more details. I know we can help you find a home that meets all of your expectations!

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