Greetings Real Estate Fans, Whew!! Looks like summer is about to leave us. Thank goodness. I am a sun guy but enough is enough! I am ready for fall temperatures. As for our local real estate market, we melted in the heat. Last month we closed escrow on just 73 homes. At this pace we will not close over 1,000 homes in our communities for the year. This is a very poor showing for us. My opinion? We cannot rely on tourism to drive our economy. We need to produce real jobs to have a consistent real estate market. Restaurant and retail workers cannot afford a $500,000 plus home. We…

Warm Greetings Real Estate Fans, What other temperature greeting could I give? As far as the weather, July was the hottest month I have ever spent in our communities. I used to tell new residents you could count on your fingers how many times we break 100°. Not anymore! The whole month of July was over 100° every day. As far as our local real estate market is concerned, you could say we are ice cold. Only 86 homes closed last month. At this rate we will not sell over 1,000 homes this year. It is possible we will not break 900. What a fall we are experiencing. This is…

Hot Greetings Fans, WOW!! I am a 44 year resident of our Hi Desert. This is by far the hottest I have ever experienced living here. For years, I would tell new residents you could count on your fingers how many times we break 100°. In addition, I would explain that every night it cools down into the 60°s. No longer! According to my weather app, we will experience temperatures in the low 100°s at least until July 24th! The weather may be hot, but our real estate market is January cold. June and July closings are usually our highest. Not this year. 82 homes closed escrow in June. This…

Greetings Real Estate Fans, Summer has rolled in like a furnace. Even my pool temperature hit 89° over the weekend! I am excited to announce a new section to my monthly Updates. Over the years, I have had many questions about the health of our vacant land sales in our communities. Of course, we slowed down in vacant land sales because of the economy and the new Joshua Tree regulations. I added a vacant land summary as part of the Update with a breakdown in both inventory and sales for our local communities. You will find this section between residential sales information and the Alta Market Report. Should be interesting…

Greetings Fans, Attached, please find the May Hi Desert Real Estate Update. You will find some disappointing numbers for this month. In the “first time” category, I have been creating these Market Updates since 2013. In the beginning, they were a little simpler than they are now, but I did keep track of some major numbers. For the first time in my record keeping, Twentynine Palms had both the highest value home sold and the lowest value home sold! Other included highlights- We closed 80 escrows in April. This is the lowest number of closed escrows in April since I started keeping records. For the first time in years, Joshua…

Greetings, Fans! Over the last month the wheels have been thrown off any prior forecast on the future of our real estate market. First, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) settled several lawsuits. The media is talking about how this will change the way real estate is done in the future. President Biden even weighed in and told us the economy will be better because of all the money people will save in real estate transactions. This is a false statement. The simple important facts are real estate commissions have, in the last 50 years, been negotiable. The second fact is: the buyer has always paid the commission. Sellers build…

Greetings Fans, I do not know about you, but I am done with this cold weather! Winter has not been too bad this year, but enough cold is enough. I am ready to see the cactus blooms, trees budding, birds singing, and the sun shining for more than 10 hours a day. Our real estate market has been in a defrost mode for almost two years now. Last month we closed escrow, basin wide, on just fifty-seven homes. I have been producing these Updates since 2013. I cannot find a month this low in all my Updates. Maybe there is one back there, but I cannot see it. Fifty-seven escrows…

Happy New Year Fans, 2023 will go down as one of the slowest years for real estate sales in our Hi Desert communities. I have been offering these Updates since 2013. Last year’s sales were on par with sales in 2013-2015. Around 1,100 sales in those three years. Last year we closed 1,123 homes in our communities. One would consider this a major slowdown from the peak in 2022 of 2,066 sales. Unlike national averages, prices in all our communities dropped. 6.75% in Yucca Valley. 13.60% in Joshua Tree and 7.50% in Twentynine Palms. Yucca Valley and Joshua Tree saw the average lot size increase while Twentynine Palms saw the…

Season’s Greetings Fans, The holidays are fully on us along with the winter weather. The focus on family and holidays takes away from home buying. In our communities, November, December, January, and February tend to be our slowest months for sales in real estate. Last month was no different than most past years. There is hope for 2024. This last week we have seen interest rates dropping into the low 7% range. I have heard of some lenders even slipping into the high 6% range for borrowers with fantastic credit. The current opinion of leaders in our industry is that with the drop in interest and, more importantly, the Fed’s…