Culinary Adventures In Park City-Part Two

This is Thanksgiving weekend and the official start of the ski season. Park City Mountain resort and Snowbird opened up last Saturday. Alta and Snowbasin opened today and the Canyons will open tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day. Deer Valley Resort always opens the first Saturday in December, which this year falls on December 5th.

With the upcoming ski season it is always fun to review the new restaurants in town. As I travel around to different resorts, when I mention that I live in Park City a frequent reply is how good the restaurants are in Park City compared to other resorts. This year we have four new restaurants in town, Spruce at the Canyons Resort, High West Distillery on Park Ave, Talisker on Main Street and a restaurant in the new St. Regis Hotel at Deer Crest.

Spruce is a very high end restaurant located at Dakota Mountain Lodge just below the base area at the Canyons Resort. Dakota Mountain Lodge features a Golden Door Spa and is operated under the Waldorf Astoria brand. As one would expect from Waldorf Astoria Hotel, the décor is exquisite and quite contemporary. The bar overlooks the hotel swimming pool and is very comfortable. The restaurant itself is beautiful and the menu is delightful with a variety of fresh seafood’s along with unique presentations. I highly recommend this restaurant for a romantic experience during your stay here.

For a fun and informal dining experience, the High West Distillery on Park Ave is a must visit. The restaurant is a restored historic building on Park Ave and only seats around 40 people. Built in 1907 by E.J. Beggs, the broad wooden building started out as the Beggs & Buckley Livery. When the horseless carriage was replaced with the automobile, Beggs and Buckley began servicing cars and changed the name to National Garage. The High West Distillery menu is a more casual “mountain” cuisine and along with sampling their local whiskey’s they will also be offering a variety of wine flights. For more information on the historic building and the distillery visit highwestdistillery.com.

Talisker on Main Street is scheduled to open early January and will feature a small dining room with a maximum of 40 guests. The chef, John Murko is preparing the menu which will be excellent judging from the other Talisker restaurants. This restaurant will be open to the public however Talisker club members will have preferred reservations, for more information visit talisker.com.

The St. Regis will offer, as expected, a five star dining experience. I will have an opportunity to experience a sampling from the menu in about two weeks and will give a review at that time.

While these new restaurants are certain to be worth visiting, I cannot leave out my long time favorites. Always consistent and excellent on my list of recommended restaurants are Riverhorse on Main, Chimayo (an interesting take of southwestern cuisine), Wahso (Asian/Pacific Rim), The Seafood Buffett @ Deer Valley (a must for families and groups) and the Fireside Dining in Empire Lodge at Deer Valley. For an intimate and romantic dining experience, the Mariposa at Deer Valley is not to be missed. For more casual or family style dinners, Windy Ridge and the Wasatch Brew Pub located on Main Street are my favorites.

While these are a good sample of restaurants to visit, Park City offers many more restaurants and when you are in town give me a call and I will be happy to recommend other restaurants that I really like.

With the ski season upon us start planning your trip to Park City now. You can always call me for the current ski conditions or restaurant/ lodging recommendations. I hope to see you this winter!

Is This the Right Time to Buy?

If you have been following this blog for the past few months you have most likely noticed a reoccurring theme that I feel that this is the time to buy resort real estate. As I have been showing buyers property over the last few weeks and talking to other buyers on the phone, they are asking me why I feel this is the time to buy. Another great question that somebody asked is, what do I tell people who purchased at the height of the market two or three years ago? These are both excellent questions and I would like to address them in this blog.

First, what do I say to people that purchased during the height of the market and have seen their property values decline over the past 2 years? As would be expected, I have several clients in this situation and I have talked with them at length about this. The first response is that while yes the property value has declined, they have had a wonderful vacation home to enjoy with their family and friends. It is impossible to put a value on the quality time that a family is able to spend together. Time spent reconnecting with children and a grandchildren who may have scattered around the country is priceless. Second, I frequently hear my clients say that had they not purchased their vacation home and instead invested that money in the stock market they would have lost more money than the value of their real estate has declined. While not overly pleased that the values have declined, everyone understands that it is a function of the global economy and are comfortable with their decision to have purchased. As long as the intent of the purchase was to actually use the property and not just flip it for a quick profit, my buyers are generally pleased with their decision.

So, why do I think now is the time to buy? After watching real estate values decline over the last 18 months I am beginning to see some sign of stabilization. However to best answer this question I need to ask two questions, first, “do you think real estate prices in a resort such as park city will increase in the next 3 to 5 years?” Second, “do you believe that interest rates, which are at historic lows, are going to go up in the near future?” If you answered yes to both of these questions, as I did, then combined with low real estate prices, strong inventory, and sellers willing to negotiate you can see why I feel that this is the right time to purchase.

It fascinates me to observe that in a “buyers market” as we are currently experiencing, buyers are reluctant to buy. However when the market is hot, as we saw in 2006, everyone wants to jump in and purchase property, even though the sellers have the advantage.

Are we at the bottom of the real estate market? Maybe… maybe not, I don’t know of anyone who can predict the bottom; however we are most likely close enough to the bottom that it makes sense to act on the desire to own a ski vacation home. This is exactly what I have been seeing for the past few months. The savvy investors who are looking for bargains have moved from the “wait and watch” to “buy”. This is now drawing the buyers who have wanted a ski home in to the market. With the stock market having regained most of its value, from the low point last March, and now seeming to fluctuate around the 10,000 mark there is widespread feeling that we may be coming out of this recession. The segment that still needs to come around is the employment market. With unemployment running around 10% it is hard for the American consumer to fully regain their confidence and to feel comfortable making a large purchase such as a vacation home. Not “if” but “when” lenders open up their credit and start lending on new construction we should see a decrease in unemployment and renewed confidence by the consumer. Whether this begins to turn around this year or next year, we will most likely see more buyers returning to our market which usually causes sellers to become less negotiable. So for these reasons I feel that there is an opportunity to purchase resort real estate at prices that we may not see again for some time, yes I feel prices will be going up in the next few years, yes I feel that interest rates will be going up and yes I feel that institutional lenders will start freeing up money.

However if you have been looking for a vacation home lets go back to the first point that I brought up and that is having a gathering spot for your family and friends to spend quality time together and to reconnect is the biggest benefit that you will receive.

NAR Real Estate Convention In San Diego

This week the National Association of Realtor's (NAR) is holding their annual convention in San Diego, which I am attending. This annual event is attended by over 20,000 realtors from all over the world. The convention is a source of education featuring top real estate speakers from around the country and is a terrific opportunity to meet and network with agent's who deal in a wide variety of markets, not just resorts, which I typically work with. I feel that this is an opportunity to get a better feel for shat is happening nationally in the real estate market. Of course, I still spend quite a bit of time talking to my fellow realtors from the western resorts.

This morning we had our Fall meeting for the Western Mountain Resort Alliance, of which I am the founder and president where we discussed along with business issues what was happening in our respective resorts. The consensus was that while this past year has been the worst that anyone has seen there is some optimism that the markets are turning, or beginning to turn, and that this ski season may see buyers re-entering the market. To give you an idea of what happened to our market last year, see the graph attached. As you can see from this graph, most of 2006 was the high point of the market, with a slight decline in 2007 and 2008. This year we saw a drastic drop in number of sales as well as dollar volume. This has been reflected in home prices in our resort as well as the length of time properties are listed before selling.

As a result of lower home prices which are being perceived as, “bargains”, everyone is seeing buyers getting back into the game. One of things that we have seen over the last year and a half with the slow down of the market was that buyers were still out there and still wanted that vacation ski home but were reluctant to act on their wishes as the U.S economy was spiraling downward. Now that the economy appears to be stabilizing, or hopefully recovering, there is a pent up demand of buyers once again looking for resort real estate.

The Good News Is That It Is Snowing Here In Park City! It started snowing last night, turned very cold and more snow is expected tonight and tomorrow. The resorts have all resumed their snowmaking operations and with a forecast of rainy and snowy cold weather for next week, it is looking very positive for thanksgiving skiing!

Come back next week! I will have further updates on what I have learned here in San Diego and further updates on the resort openings. Also upcoming will be my annual restaurant review of what’s new in Park City.