Laura Lake Your Desert Real Estate Partner

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Laura Lake Your Desert Real Estate Partner I’m not just listing a home—I’m relaunching it for success.”

..Laura Lake, Associate Broker with Equity Union Real Estate

Laura Lake | DRE #01455311 | Brokered by LPT Realty
La Quinta + Palm Desert Real Estate | Quality Lifestyle living | Helping Active Adults | Coastal Relocators | 2nd Home Buyers YOUR PARTNER IN REAL ESTATE...IT'S WHAT I DO

I help downsizers and frustrated home sellers relaunch their listing with a smarter, modern strategy—combining A.I.-powered marketing, elevated media, and a full-service, heart-led approach to get the sale their home deserves.

10/13/2026

Compass spent September telling my MLS to stop fining agents who keep listings off it. On September 30, CRMLS said no, and said it would countersue.

That fight sounds like inside baseball until you are the one selling. The MLS is how every agent and every home search site sees your house at the same moment. Hold a listing back and fewer buyers see it, and fewer buyers usually means less competition for your home.

So if someone pitches you a private launch, the question is simple. Who gets left out?
The full September roundup is on the blog now, including the commission lawsuits finally running out of appeals and the FAIR Plan increase landing this month. Everything is open, no email needed to read it. Link is in the first comment.

Laura Lake | Your Desert Real Estate Partner | DRE #01455311

If you are in your sixties in a house that fit you perfectly at fifty, this one is for you.California crossed a line in ...
10/13/2026

If you are in your sixties in a house that fit you perfectly at fifty, this one is for you.

California crossed a line in 2024. Residents 60 and over started outnumbering children under 18, and the state's own projection puts about 28 percent of Californians at 60 or older by 2040. That is the California Department of Aging, fact sheet updated September 4.

The statewide number is the news. The desert is where you can already see what it does to housing. Single level floor plans that go fast. HOAs with an age minimum written into them. Streets built in a decade when nobody expected to walk anywhere.

So the useful question is not the statewide one. It is whether the house that fit you at fifty still fits at seventy, and what the smaller version of it actually costs here once you count the HOA, the insurance, and the part nobody budgets for, which is the move itself.

Most downsizing advice is about square footage. Here it is about stairs, heat, and how far you are willing to drive to the people you already know.
Laura Lake | Your Desert Real Estate Partner | DRE #01455311

If you own a desert house you are not standing in right now, this is the one to read.California just changed what an ins...
10/13/2026

If you own a desert house you are not standing in right now, this is the one to read.

California just changed what an insurance company has to do before it drops you. SB 1301 was signed September 27. Starting July 1, 2027, a non-renewal notice has to arrive 90 days before your policy expires instead of 75.
If the problem is something you could fix, the notice has to come 120 days out, in writing, naming exactly what would keep the policy in force. Then you get at least 90 days to do the work.
Now the part the headlines are getting wrong. Roof age alone does stop being a reason to drop you, but only if you pay for an independent roof inspection confirming at least five years of useful life left. The protection is real. It is not automatic.

Two things to keep straight. The law is not in force yet, so today the notice is still 75 days. And it does not stop a rate increase, only a quiet non-renewal.

Insurance is the thing my clients ask about before they ask about price right now. This law helps with the letter. It does nothing about the premium.

Laura Lake | Your Desert Real Estate Partner | DRE #01455311

My face hurts from smiling about this recommendation. :)
10/12/2026

My face hurts from smiling about this recommendation. :)

Bermuda Dunes sits between Palm Desert, La Quinta and Indio, and it has no city council.That stopped being a technicalit...
10/12/2026

Bermuda Dunes sits between Palm Desert, La Quinta and Indio, and it has no city council.

That stopped being a technicality this week. Coachella has banned new data centers inside its limits. Palm Springs has a moratorium. Every one of those decisions stops at the city line, and the land on the other side of it is decided by five Riverside County supervisors instead.

KESQ's I-Team went straight at that gap on Tuesday. More than 9,000 people have now signed a petition asking the county to pause data center approvals in unincorporated areas until it writes standards for them.

Fourth District Supervisor V. Manuel Perez says he is taking no data center meetings at all, and he was clear that is his own office's decision and not a countywide ban. The county says it has had preliminary conversations with developers and has no formal application on file.

Coachella Mayor Frank Figueroa put the mechanism in one sentence. "We might be the city that did it, but there's those people that don't have a city council."

I went looking for a vote on the record in La Quinta or Palm Desert and did not find one.

🗣️ MY TAKE, I do not endorse candidates and I never will. I do think anyone who owns in La Quinta should know who is asking to decide what gets built next to them.

Laura Lake | Your Desert Real Estate Partner | DRE #01455311

If you are shopping in this valley and nobody has explained leased land to you yet, today is a good day to learn why it ...
10/12/2026

If you are shopping in this valley and nobody has explained leased land to you yet, today is a good day to learn why it exists.

The Cahuilla have been in this valley a very long time, and the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians still holds reservation land across Palm Springs and Cathedral City. In the 1870s the federal government handed alternating square mile sections of this desert to the railroad and set the others aside for the tribe. The result is a checkerboard, and in Palm Springs it runs right through the middle of the city.

That is the reason a house here can sit on land you own or on land you lease. It is not a developer's quirk. It is a map drawn about 150 years ago that nobody has redrawn.

It changes what you can borrow, what you pay every month, and what the house is worth in 30 years. On a Palm Springs or Cathedral City address it is the first thing I check, before square footage.

"Leased land is not the problem people think it is. Finding out about it after you are in escrow is the problem."

Laura Lake | Your Desert Real Estate Partner | DRE #01455311

Sold in La QuintaMy seller originally bought this home to be close to the schools for the kids. The buyers chose it for ...
10/11/2026

Sold in La Quinta

My seller originally bought this home to be close to the schools for the kids. The buyers chose it for the same reason. My seller was very happy to hear that, and so was I. I love when a home gets handed off that way.

Escrow had a few bumps during inspections. We worked through each one and negotiated an outcome that was good for both the seller and the buyer.

Now my seller gets to leave the desert heat behind, move back east to be closer to family, and enjoy retirement.

This is the second home I have sold for this client. Repeat business and referrals are built on trust, and I do not take that lightly.

The seller also took part in my Certified Home Launch Program. If you are curious how it works, send me a message. No pressure, ever.

Laura Lake | DRE #01455311 | Brokered by LPT Realty

Today is National Walk to a Park Day, which is a funny thing to mark in a valley where four months of the year the answe...
10/10/2026

Today is National Walk to a Park Day, which is a funny thing to mark in a valley where four months of the year the answer is no. October is the month that changes. Mornings are back in the 70s and the parks fill up again.

Three worth the drive:
Civic Center Park in Palm Desert. Behind the library, with the amphitheater, the rose garden and a loop you can walk before the heat finds you.

Fritz Burns Park in La Quinta. Shade, a pool, and small enough that a walk around it is a walk and not a project.

Freedom Park in Palm Desert. The dog run is the real draw and the path around the fields is flat.

And if you want the version with a hill in it, the Cove trailhead at the top of Calle Tecate is five minutes from Old Town La Quinta.

Where are you walking this week?
Laura Lake | DRE #01455311

This Week in the Desert, Friday October 9.Eight things worth knowing from around the valley this week.Wally's Desert Tur...
10/09/2026

This Week in the Desert, Friday October 9.

Eight things worth knowing from around the valley this week.

Wally's Desert Turtle reopens for its 48th season in Rancho Mirage today. The Steve Chase interior is still intact, which makes it one of the last rooms in the valley that still looks the way it did when it opened. Worth a call first, I have not confirmed the hours for the new season.

Yum Food Fest and Night Market takes over the southeast parking lot at The Shops at Palm Desert tomorrow and Sunday, 3pm to 10pm both days. It is in Palm Desert, whatever Eventbrite tells you.
The Betty Ford Center is putting $40 million into Phase 2 of its Rancho Mirage campus. That buys a new resident treatment building with 60 beds and a dining hall seating 168. Phase 2 finishes in 2027 and the full project in 2029.

Palm Springs International locked in the last of its federal money for a new baggage handling system. A final FAA grant of $5,501,525 brings federal funding to $66.55 million of a $93.6 million project, finishing late 2028.

Zac Brown Band and Train will headline the 2027 American Express at PGA WEST in La Quinta, Friday January 22 and Saturday January 23. Tickets are on sale now.

Desert Hot Springs holds its State of the City, Business Awards and Expo on Thursday October 15, 10am to 1pm at the Desert Hot Springs Recreation Center on Cholla Drive. Check with the Greater Coachella Valley Chamber on whether it is open to the public before you plan around it.

Still Waters Hospice is opening an office in Old Town La Quinta at 78150 Calle Tampico, with a chamber ribbon cutting on Thursday October 15.

Walter Clark Legal Group opened a new Indio office on Monroe Street this week, with a chamber ribbon cutting on Wednesday.
Laura Lake | DRE #01455311

Paint El Paseo Pink is back for its 20th year. Kickoff is 7:30 am tomorrow at The Gardens on El Paseo and the walk start...
10/09/2026

Paint El Paseo Pink is back for its 20th year. Kickoff is 7:30 am tomorrow at The Gardens on El Paseo and the walk starts at 8:00. The money raised goes to the Desert Cancer Foundation, which helps people who live in this valley pay for their cancer care. Raju Mehta is this year's Grand Marshal.

Twenty years in, this is still the one morning on El Paseo where nobody is shopping. I have watched a lot of things come and go on that street in 21 years, and this is the one that stuck.

If you are out there walking, I want to know who you are walking for. Tell me in the comments.

Laura Lake | DRE #01455311

Address

73-725 El Paseo, Ste #21B
Palm Desert, CA
92260

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 8pm
Tuesday 9am - 8pm
Wednesday 9am - 8pm
Thursday 9am - 8pm
Friday 9am - 8pm
Saturday 9am - 5pm
Sunday 9am - 8pm

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