It’s Steady as She Goes at the Beach, Desert

Real estate salespeople at desert and beach resorts say they are not seeing any dramatic upsurge in sales.

“Very consistent” is how Scott Lyle, owner of Lyle Realtors and president of the Palm Springs Board of Realtors, describes the market there. “A steady building” is how Robert Golden, executive vice president of the Boca Raton Assn. of Realtors in Florida, puts it. “Stable” is the word from Diane Severson, executive vice president of the Maui Board of Realtors in Hawaii.

“The barracudas have been circling for a long time,” explains Mary Gerakopoulos, a Boca Raton broker who is president of the real estate board there.

Now, however, inventories in the Atlantic Coast communities where she operates are dropping, she says, and good properties are moving quicker--signs of an improving market. Prices haven’t moved up yet, she says, but the days when it was a buyers’ market are over.

In Palm Springs, Lyle says condominiums in the lower price ranges are moving well--in part because they’re selling for the same $80,000-$90,000 they were fetching 15 years ago. In nearby Palm Desert, Judy Weiss Zeigler, vice president of the real estate board, also says sales are “definitely up,” adding that a healthy year is expected.

Meanwhile, on the shores and links of Hawaii, the early 1993 market is little changed from year-ago levels but down from its 1990 banner year, Severson says. The strong yen brought Japanese second-home buyers to Hawaii when the rest of the country was largely bereft of house hunters. With the downturn in Japan, Maui’s market plunged in 1991 before leveling off last year, she says.