What August tells you

February in the Coachella Valley is club calendars, second-home weeks, and houses judged by how they entertain and how the light sits on the mountain at four o’clock. That market is real. It is not the whole year.

August asks different questions. Shade, afternoon wind, glass, and overhangs. A room that is pleasant in February can be hard to occupy when the valley is at its hottest, and a pool that looks like the point of the house may not be where anyone sits.

Most of the people who call are arriving from another market. The useful question is whether a house fits how they want to live here, in August as well as in February.