It seems unlikely, but the coronavirus has created ideal conditions for a dramatic spike in home sales in the Coachella Valley. With so many people working from home — and realizing home can be anywhere — the desert real estate market is looking more attractive than ever.
“We appear to be in one of the strongest housing markets in over 13 years,” Michael McDonald of Market Watch LLC told an audience of real estate agents in a Palm Springs Life webinar. “Interest rates and inventory are low, and demand is exceeding supply, which means we can expect price gains and bidding wars.”
Seven months into the pandemic, the number of pending sales of single-family homes and condominiums in the Coachella Valley were up 56 percent and 42 percent, respectively, over the same period last year, McDonald reports. The gains were especially significant in Indian Wells (up 131 percent), Palm Springs (128 percent), and La Quinta (86 percent).
Meanwhile, inventory was at its lowest in more than 20 years, continuing a trend of decline. “The contraction in inventory is a 4.5-year phenomenon, intensified somewhat by the coronavirus,” McDonald says. “The virus is causing people to want to get out of densely populated cities, and that’s fueling the demand we have.”
Coachella Valley Safe Haven
The Greater Palm Springs region saw home sales increase by 27 percent as it becomes more desirable as people reset their values and priorities amid the pandemic. It appears the virtual office will be more permanent than originally expected,emphasizing the silver lining. The uptick has been spurred by urban dwellers with the flexibility to work remotely, who are taking up full-time residence in Greater Palm Springs.
Palm Springs benefits from larger homes listed at more affordable prices, an abundance of shopping, dining and entertainment options, and sizzling temperatures year-round. Its median sale price rose 15 percent between September 2019 and 2020, hitting $450,000. The typical home spent 37 days on the market, 20 days faster than the same period last year. A whopping 44 percent of homes sold above asking, an indicator of just how red-hot this vacation market has become. Compared to Q3 2019, there were 7,845 more Redfin users searching for homes within Riverside County. Palm Springs earned the number eight spot in Redfin’s ranking of US counties that have heated up the most over the past year.
Read Related article from Redfin
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