Snowmaking

While November has been uncharacteristically warm and dry, the weather finally turned cold last week, and all of the resorts are making snow. Snowmaking has been going on continuously since Tuesday, November 20, with Park City and the Canyons having opened last weekend. The forecast is for several small snowstorms to come through this week and continued quite cold. The cold weather is allowing the resorts to open more runs every few days. Snowbird and Alta have scheduled their opening for Friday, November 30.

All of the resorts are gearing up for the winter season with the new lift at Deer Valley fully operational and just waiting for Mother Nature’s cooperation. The Village at Empire Pass is looking very good with three condominium buildings completed and sold out, another under construction with a scheduled completion of next summer, and another having just broken ground. The homes and townhouses are mostly completed. This will be the first full season with this much completed and the members-only Tower Club open, which will give the Village the feel of a wonderful ski community. Bookings for this coming ski season are strong, particularly for all the holiday seasons, and we are all looking forward to a great ski season.

Thanksgiving Week in Park City

It is Thanksgiving week in Park City, the ski resorts are ready to open and all we need is snow. After a very wet September and October, November has been uncharacteristically dry and warm. However the forecast is for colder and snowy weather for the next couple of weeks. If this holds true, most of the resorts will be able to open by this weekend. Thanksgiving week in Park City is traditionally not overly busy. While many years we have excellent skiing, it is always chancy and most people are not planning a ski vacation this early.

I just came back from a National Real Estate convention in Las Vegas where I attended several meetings and classes dealing specifically with resort real estate. In talking with many of my resort colleagues around the country, it was quickly apparent that the Rocky Mountain resorts continue to be the shining star in the real estate market. The northeast and Atlantic coast areas seem to be the hardest hit by the real estate slowdown. Of interest were the resorts in Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, where business is booming. They report that their sales numbers are up 30% over last year in both number of units sold and average sales price. In talking with other resort realtors, it became apparent that the doom and gloom reports in all the news media is more sensationalism than fact. While there certainly are markets that are struggling right now, the majority of the real estate markets in the US are doing just fine.

Blowing Snow

All the resorts are getting ready to open! Here is a photo of Bald Mountain at Deer Valley Resort making snow this morning.

Big News at the Canyons!

The headline news this past week is that the disputed sale of the Canyons resort to either Vail or Talisker is closer to being resolved. Both Talisker Corporation and Vail have been battling each other all summer for the rights to purchase the Canyons resort. Earlier in the summer, Talisker had announced that it had reached a deal with American Ski Corp., the current owner of the canyons to purchase the resort for $100 million. Immediately after this announcement, Vail resorts claimed that they had rights to purchase the resort and filed a motion in federal court in Denver to block the sale of the resort to Talisker. At the end of October, after hearing arguments from both sides, the federal court ruled that Vail had lost out in a fair, competitive bidding situation, and that the court would not block the sale of the Canyons resort to Talisker Corp. While there still are some hurdles to overcome, this was a significant step for Talisker to proceed with the purchase. Talisker is hoping to complete the purchase before the end of this year.

As a result, savvy investors are looking to properties at the Canyons resort, either the new developments at the base or vacant land in the Colony, as an excellent investment opportunity. With the federal reserve having cut interest rates again, and the overall real estate market slower than in the past years, this appears to be an excellent time to invest in Park City.