It also happens a lot in Hawaii, where we own a condo. The general advice we ran into is that most people don't think it's a good idea to do a lease-hold unless the numbers work for a rental property. Apparently the property generally goes down in value as the time left on the lease runs out, because nobody knows if the lease will renew (I think the lease-or has the right to take the property back at that time?) or if the rent will increase substantially.
Most people told us to buy fee-simple, which is the usual situation where you own the land (or in the case of a condo, a tiny sliver of land).
Might be different in Palm Springs.