Park City's Version of Beachfront Property

As the founder and president of the Western Mountain Resort Alliance (formerly the Rocky Mountain Resort Alliance), I had the opportunity to travel to and visit almost all of the western ski resorts in Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, and California. One of the things that I found that was very unique about Park City is the amount of ski-in/ski-out properties that we have. To most people, the term "ski-in/ski-out" is something they haven't heard before and is unique to ski towns. "Ski-in/ski-out" is pretty much what you would think the term implies: this can be a condo or a home, located directly on the ski slopes of one of our ski resorts. Here in Park City and Deer Valley, we have taken the definition to being right on the slope or at least at the base-area complex. If you have to walk across the street to get to skiing, we don't consider this ski-in/ski-out. As walking across the street to the beach is not considered beachfront prperty.

By far the majority of ski resorts in the western United States are built on forest service land which precludes their ability to have private homes located anywhere other than at the base or in town, thus severely limiting what can be ski-in/ski-out. Park City is very unique in that the ski areas here are all built on private land, mostly owned by the major mining company, United Park City Mines, and therefore is available for development. Particularly Deer Valley, which was designed more of what you would think of as a golf course country club with homes surrounding the resort. The same goes for The Canyons Resort here in Park City. When Edgar Stern first developed Deer Valley, he had the idea of developing it more like a country club and sold off parcels of land adjacent to the resort to private parties to develop homesites and condos. This is very evident as you ski around Deer Valley and ski through beautiful on-mountain homes and condo projects. At The Canyons Resort, the most prominent area of ski-in/ski-out homes is a development called The Colony at White Pine Canyon. This is an incredibly beautiful piece of land, broken mostly into five- and ten-acre homesites, all with direct ski-in/ski-out access to The Canyons Resort.

As with beachfront property, the scarcity and desirability of the product drives the pricing on these properties. For instance, at the Silver Lake area of mid-mountain Deer Valley, the least expensive ski-in/ski-out three-bedroom condo is priced at $1.4 million. If you are willing to walk a block or two to the resort, you can find a three-bedroom condo in the lower $900s. In an area of Deer Valley called Deer Crest, which is almost exclusively ski-in/ski-out homesites, a vacant lot of about one acre will start at $1 million and go up to about $3 million for the most desirable lots. For a finished home in the Deer Crest development, the lowest-priced home currently on the market is around $3.4 million, with the highest-priced just over $19 million. For comparison, there is a section of Deer Crest that does not have direct ski-in/ski-out access and a 10,000-square foot new home with incredible views can be purchased for under $3 million.

Resort real estate is really not much different from real estate anywhere else in the axiom of "location, location, location" is as true here as in any other real estate market. The focus of the location in our resorts IS the resort. And as in all resorts, the further you are from the focus of the resort, the more you get for your dollar. However, as you get farther from the resort, the rentability and the dollar amount that you can command for a vacation rental drops rapidly. So when contemplating purchasing a vacation property at one of our resorts, several questions need to be asked: Do I want true ski-in/ski-out and is the convenience and ambiance of being "on the mountain" enough to justify the price, or am I willing to settle for either a short walk or a short drive to get more of a home at a lesser price. Interestingly enough, these are the same questions that renters ask themselves when looking to book their vacation. One point that I always try to make to potential buyers if they have decided they do not need direct ski-in/ski-out access is that once they have to drive to the resort--that is, pack up the car with all the gear and load the family in--it doesn't matter if you're driving five minutes or ten minutes to get to a resort. But that extra five minute drive can get you a substantially larger property for the price.

In the age of the internet, most buyers are shopping online as there are many terrific websites to help you find properties. What you can't get a feel for online is the location, which translates to desirability, rentability, and resale-ability. This is where the knowledge of a local Realtor becomes invaluable.

It is snowing hard here today with 2-3 feet expected overnight and I am looking forward to an incredible powder day in the morning. Book your vacation to Park City and let me show you our mountains, and the terrific opportunities we have in resort real estate.