World Cup at Deer Valley

This past weekend the Freestyle World Cup came to Deer Valley with the best skiers in the world competing in aerials, Skiercross, and dual moguls. The Skiercross Saturday afternoon was extremely exciting. A good description of skiercross is the ski race Super G meets Roller Derby. Four skiers at a time on a twisting turning course with jumps and first on to the bottom wins. Saturday night featured the dual mogul competition under the lights. This is always a great party and about 10,000 people turned out for the competition. The US team did very well in the Skiercross and moguls. This has become an annual event in Deer Valley and one that we look forward to every year.

In real estate news, January 2008 saw real estate sales slightly slower than the same period last year. While visitors in town are looking, the feeling that we get is that everybody is a little cautious and not in a hurry. With the real estate news around the country, buyers are looking for bargains however sellers for the most part are holding fairly tight on their prices. While this is frustrating for many buyers everyone has to understand that the resort markets in the west are not the same as the national real estate market. We do not deal with sub-prime buyers and we are finding that visitors do want a vacation property, see the value in Park City real estate, and do have the means to purchase. Sellers, on the other hand, are generally not in a position where they have to sell, and are comfortable knowing that they have a great place to come visit and will wait for the market to turn if they have to. For resort real estate, this is the perfect time to purchase as the market is slower, there are more choices, and prices are somewhat more negotiable than in a hot market. In real estate, the time to purchase is during a downturn. Interest rates are lower than they have been for many years, and prices are not rising rapidly.

With the incredible snow that we are having this year, the town is full, lodging companies are expecting February to be 9-11% above last year for visitors and that should continue into march. This is a great time to come ski Utah, discover how wonderful the snow is and how easy it is to get here.

Luxury Homes, Recession-Proof So Far