By Debra Gruszecki – The Desert Sun

They’re seeing it in Brentwood and Beverly Hills. And now, luxury homes are selling here.
Keller Williams Realty Inc., led by operating principal Michael Hilgenberg, is experimenting to seize on that market. It opened an elegant, new Legacy Division at 50-981 Washington St., in one of the hottest, million-dollar-plus sales areas of the Coachella Valley: La Quinta, where 32 luxury sales were recorded in the first three months of the year.

Hilgenberg said Legacy is opening at this time for these prime reasons:
• The economy has pushed the envelope on distressed sales, softening price in the luxury market in a way that offers buyers more home for the dollar.
• Economists have been saying the market, long in its trough, is trending up.
• Bargains can be had in high-end real estate.

“We think the baby-boom generation, which has been holding off on where to put its money, is going to come off the fence, and pick real estate for their investment,” he said.
“What’s exciting about this is we’re the test case to this whole concept of an exclusive office specific to luxury homes,” he said. “The international division of Keller Williams is watching to see how it’s going to work.”

High-end homes account for about 2 percent of overall home sales in the Coachella Valley and most of the home sales these days are closer to the median sales price range of $200,000.
But Real Data Strategies, which prepares a real estate market report for The Desert Sun, last week issued first quarter 2010 data that shows million-dollar home sales are gaining steam.

They’re up 65 percent.
Total sales volume rose 57 percent to $152 million in the first quarter, as well, up from $97 million in January through March 2009.
Valery Neuman, a luxury residential real estate broker for Windermere Real Estate who was a top sales agent in the Coachella Valley in 2009 with 36 transactions — 15 sales — that totaled $58.2 million, described this period as one laced with opportunity in all price ranges.

“I’m seeing people who have been shopping for a luxury home for a couple of years who are definitely looking to buy now,” said Neuman, a 19-year veteran in desert real estate. “People who came out two years ago are pulling the trigger.”

The recent $10.1 million cash sale of a 9,115-square-foot estate in Bighorn Golf Club by Coldwell Banker luxury sales agents Gerry and Vicki Rodehaver has been taken as another sign of hopeful buying activity in the high-end market. “It’s a sign the high-end market is coming back,” said Patti Rollins, Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage Office manager in Indian Wells. “It’s been a long haul.”
“We went from quarter-after-quarter with no luxury sales,” Rollins said. “Now, it’s really opened up. I have agents telling me they have buyers coming this summer, and we’re looking at a potentially really strong summer.”
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“We have five sales well over $1 million on my board, and we opened one $5 million escrow today,” Rollins said last week. “We’re very optimistic.”
Coldwell Banker has brought on 11 new real estate agents, she said, and summer vacations are being postponed.
Action comes with a catch.
“If it’s priced to sell, it’ll sell,” Neuman said. “This is not a speculator’s market.”
Prices are down roughly 40 percent from 2006 levels, Neuman said, and the $6 million homes of 2007 are in some cases fetching $4 million, or 33 percent less than they did three years ago.
Mike Smith, of Classic Living Realty, is advertising a short sale in The Vintage on an $8 million home that’s now going for $4.3 million.
And the former estate of Liberace just sold in Palm Springs for roughly half of its former $2.8 million list price.
“The home in Bighorn that sold for $10.1 million originally listed for $11.5 (million),” Rollins said.
Luxury sales like that are playing out with greater frequency in Orange County and the Los Angeles market, Hilgenberg said on the day the ribbon was cut to open Legacy. Managed by son Heath, it will operate with a staff of 16.
Logic follows that the luxury market here will become more active because of growing consumer confidence in real estate acquisitions and reports the high-end properties in the Los Angeles market are starting to sell again, Heath Hilgenberg said.

Interested or buying or selling property in Palm Springs or the Coachella Valley area? Contact Patrick-Stewart Properties today.