Founder · The McLennan Team

Laurie McLennan

At a glance

Twenty five years, one valley

Laurie has built the business the old fashioned way: through results, referrals and relationships that outlast a single closing. Her clients range from first time desert buyers to seasoned investors, and they all get the same thing, someone who has seen this market through every cycle and knows how to position a deal to close.

Property has run in the family for three generations, and the desert connection goes back to 1960. That is a long time to watch one market, and it is the reason she can tell you not just what a community is like today but how it got there.

Twenty five years inside the desert’s private communities

Laurie’s knowledge extends beyond recent sales and asking prices to the details that decide long term value inside a private community: membership structures, course orientation, view corridors, seasonal demand, association obligations, renovation potential, and the differences between streets that look nearly identical online.

Each guide carries current MLS figures updated monthly, alongside what decides value within that specific community. All ten community guides.

Selling: position, not exposure alone

In the desert’s private communities, two homes of similar square footage can trade at very different values. Course position, mountain orientation, privacy, renovation quality, membership access and the time of year all move the outcome.

Laurie builds a pricing and positioning strategy around the property itself rather than an automated estimate, and manages the process from preparation and private outreach through negotiation and closing.

More in our guide to selling a luxury home in the Coachella Valley, or request an opinion of value.

Buying a second home here is not like buying a first one

Most of what decides satisfaction in a desert second home is invisible in a listing, and unfamiliar to a buyer whose experience is a primary residence elsewhere.

• Whether the property genuinely works as lock and leave, and who manages it when you are not here
• Club membership, which is usually a separate decision from ownership and sometimes a separate cost entirely
• What association dues actually cover, which differs enormously between communities
• Furnished against unfurnished, and what each is worth at resale
• Short term rental eligibility, which turns on the specific address rather than the community
• Timing a purchase around the season, and what that costs or saves

See also when to buy in the Coachella Valley.

Beyond the public listing feed

After twenty five years in the Valley, Laurie maintains relationships with homeowners, agents and community contacts across the desert. When the right property is not publicly available, she can conduct discreet outreach and help clients evaluate pre market and private opportunities as they arise.

In the smaller private communities that matters more than it sounds. At BIGHORN, three of thirteen recent sales closed at full asking with zero days on market, meaning they transacted before or immediately upon listing.

Relocating to the desert, with someone local long after closing

A meaningful share of Coachella Valley buyers arrive from somewhere else. Canadians who winter here. Buyers from the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest and the Northeast escaping the season. Families from the UK, Europe, Mexico and Asia buying a second or third residence. Investors looking at a market with a defined high season and unusual event demand.

Some are moving permanently rather than seasonally: retirees, remote workers, and medical professionals drawn by the Valley’s hospitals and travel assignments. Those buyers need something different from a tour and a contract. They need someone who is still here in November when the first association bill arrives and they have no idea what it covers.

Those buyers face questions a local one does not, and Laurie works through them regularly:

Comparing communities from three thousand miles away

The hardest part of relocating is not the transaction. It is deciding where, when everything you can see online looks broadly similar and the differences that matter are invisible.

Which city suits how you actually want to spend a week. Whether a club should organise your social life or simply sit nearby. What a street is like in February against August. Whether the community empties for six months. Our comparison of the eight cities and the ten community guides exist largely because these questions come up in every relocation conversation.

And after closing

Introductions to the people you will need: contractors, landscapers, property managers, someone to check the house when you are not in it. Which club to look at if you did not buy into one. Where to find the things you assumed you would have to drive to Palm Springs for.

Laurie has lived here through twenty five years of it, and her family since 1960. That is the part of a relocation an out of state agent cannot offer, and it is why most of her relocation clients came through someone she moved here previously.

Referring agents are welcome. Laurie holds the Board of Regents territory for Palm Springs and Riverside County within Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate, and referral clients are handled personally by Laurie and Cailin rather than passed to an assistant.

Credentials

The RSPS designation is the one most relevant to this market. A large share of desert purchases are second homes, and the questions that decide satisfaction, lock and leave practicality, seasonal management, rental eligibility and what dues actually cover, are different from those a primary residence raises.

What clients say when it is done

More client reviews

Two global networks

Every listing is placed through the Sotheby’s International Realty network, carrying it to qualified buyers in markets most local agents cannot access, alongside professional photography, video and international marketing.

Every listing also moves through Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate, where Laurie holds the Board of Regents territory for Palm Springs and Riverside County, a seat held by a single member firm per market across the network’s global membership.

In a valley where many buyers arrive from outside California and a meaningful number from outside the country, that reach is not a nice to have.

Common questions

Start with a conversation

Whether you are buying, selling, relocating or looking at a second home in the desert, the first conversation costs nothing and usually saves something.

Laurie McLennan, Founder, The McLennan Team at Desert Sotheby’s International Realty
78065 Main Street, Suite 101, La Quinta, CA 92253
+1 760.413.6190 · laurie.mclennan@sothebysrealty.com
California DRE #01424382 · Licensed in California and Nevada · ABR, GRI, RSPS