Legend Trail is a community in Scottsdale that is located high in the Sonoran Desert. It sits on 640 acres of pristine, preserved open space desert. It not only is an upscale residential neighborhood. It also offers ample recreational opportunities for residents and stands out as a showpiece in the collection of Rees Jones golf-designed courses.

The Legend Trail community came into existence in 1970 and was finished in 1977. It comprises entirely of expansive, comfortable single-family homes.

Legend Trail remains popular with home buyers in the area because it offers a quiet, relaxed way of life away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. Much of the daily life here revolves around the world class golf course that is available to all homeowners.

However, Legend Trail is not so remotely located that it is not near shops, restaurants and other conveniences that homeowners need while living here. There is a shopping center, as well as a grocery store and specialty shop, just five miles from Legend Trail. Legend Trail homeowners are also just 15 miles from a major medical center and about 50 minutes away from Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport.

Local real estate professionals like Carl Chapman REALTOR at West USA Realty can show prospective buyers the available properties for sale in Legend Trail. The homes for sale here are primarily single-family residences, although there are around 30 condominiums located here as well. The typical asking price is around $900,000; however, some prices can be as low as $$475,000 to $559,000, depending on the size and location of the available homes in the community.

Homes typically remain on the market for around 53 days before selling. Sellers typically get around 95 percent of their full asking price.

Further, the homes for sale here average in size from 2000 to 2800 square feet. They consist of three and four bedrooms and two and three bathrooms, on average.

Additionally, they offer features like:

• Offices or dens
• Cooks' kitchens
• Kitchen islands or bars
• Gas ranges
• Double ovens
• Formal dining rooms
• Cathedral ceilings
• Large windows for maximum natural light

The backyards of the homes here also come with park-like amenities, such as covered terraces, barbecue or fire pits and swimming pools.

The amenities out in the Desert Trail community come courtesy of the neighborhood's community association. This association functions to oversee not only the shared features and amenities in Desert Trail but also to protect the architectural integrity and natural beauty of the area.

It likewise enforces the rules and guidelines by which all homeowners agree to live when they move into the community. The association maintains its own website where homeowners in Desert Trail can go to find important community documents, such as insurance certificates, neighborhood maps, governing documents and minutes from the monthly association meetings. They can also find phone numbers for community contacts on the website.

The Desert Trail community association also offers classes and groups to keep homeowners here entertained and busy. These classes include those for fitness and exercise. They also include a health and wellness lecture series that homeowners can find out more about and sign up for on the association's website.

Finally, the community association for Desert Trail publishes a community newsletter called Trail Talk. Copies of it can be found on the association's website.

The primary amenity that homeowners in Desert Trail appreciate, however, is the community's golf course. This golf course was designed by Rees Jones and offers two streams of play. The most challenging is the Long Trail, which measures well over 6800 yards. The Short Trail is the easier stream of play, yet still measures over 5000 yards and features wide fairways and ultra dwarf greens.

Rees Jones named each hole on the course after a landscape feature in the surrounding Sonoran Desert. These names include Nature's Bounty, Finishing Touch and Promised Land.

The beauty of the golf course, combined with the level of challenge in its two streams of play, make the Desert Trail Golf Course one of the most popular in the area. Golf players come from all over the region to play, as well as indulge in the menus, featuring Southwest and Mexican cuisine, offered at the course's onsite Cantina restaurant.

The golf course in Desert Trail is so popular that it has been named one of the most women-friendly fairways by Golf for Women Magazine. Likewise, Golf Digest gives the course a 4.5 out of five-star ranking for being one of the best courses in the country to play.

Finally, Desert Trail is part of the Cave Creek Unified School District. This district garners both statewide and national recognition for excellence, safety and top quality sports programs.

Students who live in Desert Trail can attend the nearby Desert Sun Academy, which focuses on STEM education. They can also go to Sonoran Trails Middle School and Cactus Shadows High School.

The schools in Cave Creek Unified School District all have small classroom sizes. In fact, the entire district only has around 5400 students, spread out among its six elementary schools, one STEM academy, and one middle school and high school.

The small student population means that students in the district benefit from more one-on-one instruction from their teachers. In fact, for every teacher in the district, there are 24 students, placing the student-per-teacher ratio on par with the national average.

Further, the Cave Creek Unified School District reports higher than the national average ACT test scores. This score sits at 27 for the district, higher than the national ACT test score of 20.6. The district has a 94 percent graduation rate, more than the national average of 85 and the state average of 78 percent.