Carlos Bravo, the owner of a tow company here, was at work late last year when a real estate agent came to him offering half a million dollars for 5 acres of undeveloped, brush-pocked desert — five times what he’d paid for the land six months earlier.

“I thought he was joking,” Bravo said.

The man came back the next day, making it clear he was not.

A few days after he had signed the paperwork, Bravo said, another man offered him $1 million.

As the first city in Southern California to legalize large-scale medical marijuana cultivation, Desert Hot Springs has been inundated by marijuana growers and developers. They are buying up dusty desert land — some with no utilities or roads — in hopes of cashing in as California’s marijuana growers come into the open under new state regulations.

“It’s pretty chaotic,” said Coachella Valley real estate broker Marc Robinson. “I’m getting tons of calls from all over the world, all over the United States. My newest clients flew over from Germany.”

Despite a sizable need for new infrastructure to support the indoor growing projects, the rush has officials in this downtrodden town dreaming of new income. [Read more at the Los Angeles Times]