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You Can Benefit From Power Naps (Cat Naps)

You Can Benefit From Power Naps (Cat Naps)

According to Wikipedia, a power nap, also known as a Stage 2 nap, is a short slumber of 20 minutes or less that's proven to be beneficial. Cats already seem to know this as our cat Spencer here is demonstrating in my home office.

Spencer says that these 20-minute naps increase his alertness and motor skills. Spencer does has excellent skills with my mouse, but if you received an email from Spencer yesterday the email was likely sent in error during his nap!

Spencer and his female housemate Sage were adopted at the Humane Society during a summer visit to Bend, Oregon about five years ago as adult cats.

See Also:

  • Siesta
  • Nap
  • Sleeping On Duty (as Spencer is doing here)

From Sheri Dettman
In Sheri's Palm Springs Area Blog, Sheri Dettman & Associates
Palm Springs Area Home Inventories Declined In September

Palm Springs Area Home Inventories Declined In September

Indian Wells Country Club neighborhood

The supply of homes offered for sale in the desert has steadily dropped this year according to a report from the Desert Area MLS®. The September listings report showed the valley's inventory of homes fell 22 percent to 4,418 homes and condos during September 2011, down from 5,681 in September of 2010.

Less Than 10% Of Inventory Bank Owned Homes

Less than ten percent of the homes offered for sale in September were bank owned homes. That’s a 39 percent drop in bank owned homes listed compared to September of 2010. The Coachella Valley's shrinking for-sale inventory parallels a trend in California and throughout the nation.

From Sheri Dettman
In Sheri's Palm Springs Area Blog
September Palm Springs Area Home Sales Up 9.4%

September Palm Springs Area Home Sales Up 9.4%

Golf Course homes at Mountain View Country Club, La Quinta

Coachella Valley home sales rose 9.4% in September compared to September 2010, outpacing home sales throughout other parts of Southern California, a new report from Data-Quick Information Systems shows.

The valley's strength as a second-home market continues to help drive sales. One positive sign was that the percentage of distressed sales continues to fall, said Greg Berkemer, executive vice president of the California Desert Association of Realtors. “A recovering market needs to see that continue every month,” said Berkemer, noting, “The desert had a better-than-expected summer.”

Since January of this year, 8,399 valley homes and condos have sold in the Palm Springs area desert communities. That’s nearly 5% more than in the first nine months of the previous year of 2010, DataQuick reported. The Coachella valley is on track to see more than 10,000 home and condo sales this year.

Monthly Sales By City Zip Code: September 2011 versus 2010

  • Palm Desert (zip code 92211) +60.9%
  • La Quinta (92253) +34.1%
  • Indio/Bermuda Dunes (92203) +11.7%
  • Palm Desert (92260) +10%
  • Cathedral City (92234) +4.2%
  • Palm Springs (92262) +1.4%
  • Indian Wells (92210) +0%
  • Rancho Mirage (92270) -11.3%
  • Palm Springs (92264) -9.1%

From Sheri Dettman
In Sheri's Palm Springs Area Blog, Real Estate Market Updates
Loonie Rides Past Parity With US Dollar. Canucks Follow!

Loonie Rides Past Parity With US Dollar. Canucks Follow!

The Canadian Dollar rose above par with the US Dollar today as investors cheered an agreement reached by European leaders on a plan to resolve the euro zone’s debt crisis.

The strengthened Canadian Dollar represents a five percent savings to Canadian buyers versus just 30-days ago when the loonie had tumbled as low as just 95 cents US.

The last time the loonie was at par, our sales of Palm Springs area properties to Canadian buyers increased substantially.

Luxury buyers do especially well when the loonie is at par. One luxury buyer exclaimed to me earlier this year when the loonie was above par, "We saved an additional $100,000 on our $2 million golf course home."

Related Article: Information For Canadian Buyers

From Sheri Dettman
In Sheri's Palm Springs Area Blog, Real Estate Market Updates

Luxury Sold For Less At Mountain View Country Club, La Quinta

Mountain View Country Club luxury golf home

My team and I continue to find great opportunities in all price segments here in the desert. In the luxury segment though, a large discount percentage (40% in this case) from the original sales price of a property can add up to some really big savings.

As an example, here's a property that just sold at Mountain View Country Club in La Quinta. At 4,449 square feet this is one of Mountain View Country Club's largest and most luxurious homes.

Located on the golf course with numerous upgrades, this popular Ventana plan home sold new for $2.1 million in '07. Today's buyer's received a discount of $850,000 resulting in a sale price of $1,250,000. This was a regular sales transaction that was priced to compete with bank-owned listed homes! This home is sold but check with me about others.
Desert Area MLS #21420289. Photo courtesy MJC Properties

From Sheri Dettman
In Sheri's Palm Springs Area Blog, Golf Communities

Are Luxury Home Sales Here Better Than Expected?

Driving through the Hideaway Golf Club in La Quinta


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

From Sheri Dettman
In Sheri's Palm Springs Area Blog, Golf Communities

Is Brown The New Color For Desert Golf Courses?

Overseeding the golf course at Andalusia in La Quinta

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.

From Sheri Dettman
In Sheri's Palm Springs Area Blog, Golf Communities

Fall Weather In The Desert Brings Lower Temps & Winter Flowers

Tradition Golf Club, La Quinta winter flowers

Sunset over La Quinta taken on Friday 9/23/11

Yesterday marked the beginning of fall weather in the desert. While there are no local maples and oaks to change color, an abundance of new winter colors will soon be sprouting up throughout the desert. Gardeners and homeowners will start to plant winter annuals during October that most Americans and Canadians couldn’t dream of planting until next spring.

The monthly high temperature during October averages 91º F (32.77º C). Temps gradually drop to 78º F in November and 69º F (20.5º C) during December.

In case you missed it, I recently posted a link on this blog to Weather Underground’s Monthly Weather Forecast where you can see the seasonal weather expected for any given month on a calendar.

I shot the sunset photo to the right just last night with my iPhone camera on our way to dinner. The heaven's seemed to be signaling the start of fall. My husband Bill shot the photo at the top at Tradition Golf Club in La Quinta with our Canon EOS 7d camera.

From Sheri Dettman
In Sheri's Palm Springs Area Blog
Desert Bank Owned Homes Selling Near Listing Prices

Desert Bank Owned Homes Selling Near Listing Prices

Bank owned home at PGA West, La Quinta

Banks don’t want to own homes that they’ve foreclosed on and so they generally price them to sell. Early on in the mortgage meltdown we saw banks give many properties away at well under market values. Banks have gotten a better handle on pricing over the last year or so and now most bank-owned homes are now selling for close to the banks list prices. Most of these properties are still a very good buy, but I suggest to clients that we examine each property on a case-by-case basis to find the best low hanging fruit.

Our team recently ran the numbers for bank owned properties sold during the last six months. We limited our stats to those properties sold for $100,000 and higher. Of 846 properties sold by banks the average sale price was $256,836 and the high price was $2.5 million. The list to sale price percentage was pretty interesting and we’ve broken them down by the time each property was on market before being sold. Note that these time periods include the contingent periods during escrow.

Bank Sale Prices Versus List Prices By Time On Market

  • 0-30 Days on market: 101.94% of list price (198 sales)
  • 31-60 Days on market: 99.06% of list price (149 sales)
  • 61-90 Days on market: 97.04% of list price (85 sales)
  • 91-120 Days on market: 96.75% of list price (85 sales)
  • 120+ Days on market: 95.59% of list price (329 sales)

These sales represent $203 million in bank owned sales over the last six months. That may sounds like a lot except that 3,648 properties were sold during these six months of which only 719 were bank owned equaling 23% of total sales.

Bottom line with bank owned properties is the offering price will generally be within 5% of the actual selling price at worst case. Entry-level properties (under $300,000) will have the most competition and generally sell for at or slightly above listing price dependent of how many offer the bank receives.

Only 13 Bank Owned Luxury Homes Sold Last 6 Months

Luxury homes (those above $1 million) will likely have a little more room to negotiate. In the last six months only 13 of these 846 bank-owned properties were sold for over $1 million with the average sale price of these luxury homes being $1.5 million.

From Sheri Dettman
In Sheri's Palm Springs Area Blog, Real Estate Market Updates
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