Art Fest & More

This past weekend was the 40th annual Art Festival in Park City which draws artists from every corner of the country. Main Street is closed to traffic as artists set up their tents and display their wares up and down the street. This event typically draws around 100,000 people over the weekend and with the hot weather in Salt Lake we probably had more this year. The best time for the fair is Friday evening which is referred to as “local’s night” where entry is free and most of the merchants have already set up shop.

This is a great time to visit the merchants in an un-crowded and much more relaxed atmosphere as well as to visit with friends that you might not have seen for a while. It seemed that the entire town turned out this year for the Friday night local’s party. In conjunction with this several of the nicer restaurants in town were offering dinner specials. A group of us visited Whaso where they were offering $5 appetizers and $10 entrée’s. Somehow we still managed to spend $70 per person, perhaps cocktails and wine had something to do with it? All in all a great event and the quality of the fair continues to increase each year. When speaking with the artists late Saturday night they were quite pleased with the sales they were making, particularly in light of the economy.

The Park City Arts Festival is one of the more desirable art festivals during the summer months for the artists with many more applications submitted than can be accommodated. This allows the festival organizers the luxury of being able to choose the best in each category and to not have too many duplicates.

In real estate news the “Golf Course Wars” are on. Two of our newer courses, Tuhaye and Red Ledges, are offering amazing incentives to attract buyers. Tuhaye is offering golf course frontage lots for sale starting at $350,000, they will carry the financing for 3-5 years at an extremely favorable interest rate, will make the first years interest payments on the loan, and will pay two years of club dues. Also included in the purchase price is the club membership currently valued at $100,000.

Red Ledges, the newest of the golf course communities, is including the club membership of approximately $100,000 in the purchase of a lot are also including a $95,000 Mercedes.

These incentives are being offered right up front by the developer, before we start negotiating and asking for other concessions.

As the U.S. and World stock markets continue to perform well we have to ask, “How long will this last?” With consumer confidence increasing and a large supply of properties to choose from, this summer is the time to be a buyer. Prices here in Park City have dropped back to about 2005 price levels so there appears to be a strong probability of an upside for real estate purchase this year. While I have said this many times before in these blogs, I cannot emphasize enough that we are approaching the time when many buyers will kick themselves and say “Why didn’t I buy in 2009?”

In the Western Mountain Resorts unlike most of the country August is a time when the weather starts cooling. Our hottest month of July is behind us and both daytime and nighttime temperatures become noticeably cooler. If where you are is still smoldering in the summer heat plan a vacation to the Rocky Mountains and experience warm days and cool nights with Park City only a 30 minute drive from Salt Lake international airport we are the easiest resort to reach.