Miners Day in Park City

Where has the summer gone that this weekend is already Labor Day, or as it is known in Park City, Miners Day. This is the weekend Park City celebrates its mining heritage with a funky small-town parade down Main Street, followed by music, food and games in the City Park and the ever-popular Mucking and Drilling Contest.

Now you may be wonder just what the heck is a mucking and drilling contest. This is a throwback to the mining days and there are two separate contests: the first, the drilling, is where former and current miners compete to see who can drill three holes in a slab of granite in the shortest amount of time using the old pneumatic drills. Best described as contraptions, these drills are about five feet long and weigh up to 70 pounds, are horrendously noisy, and will vibrate your eye teeth out of your mouth. Watching the miners pick up this piece of machinery, set it against the wall of granite and quickly drill a hole in a precise location is truly amazing. What comes next, however, is the mucking. Mucking is a term used by the silver miners for getting rid of the waste rock in the mine of which there is plenty. To do this another contraption is used which consists of an ore cart on a rail (again pneumatic driven) and with a pneumatic-powered bucket on the front. So the miner/contestant runs the cart forward on the track to the pile of muck, scoops up a bucket full which then is lifted up and over the top and drops in the ore cart. The part of the ore cart with the bucket is on a hinge which can swivel left or right or straight. So the miner is constantly angling the bucket to pick up the most amount of muck and then has to get it straight so it drops straight into the cart. The contest is to see who can fill the cart with the most muck in the smallest amount of time. As you can see, we are easily amused here in Park City. So that is Labor Day/Miners Day in Park City which will of course include the mandatory barbecues and a sad farewell to summer which feels like it just started yesterday.

In real estate news, probably the biggest news coming up that will have the most affect on buyers is that on October 1, conforming loan limits change from about $729,000 to close to $600,000. The affect that this will have on our market remains to be seen but it could be fairly significant. The gist of this change is that prior to October 1, purchases with a loan amount up to around $729,000 are available at the lower conforming rate, and now after October 1, any loan amounts over the new $600K limit will have to be jumbo loans which traditionally come at a cost of at least half a percent. The National Association of Realtors, bankers and lenders are lobbying hard to get Congress to extend this to at least the end of the year. Let's hope they are successful as this will allow buyers to continue purchasing and save significant amounts of money during the course of their loan.

Fall is one of the prettiest time of the year in the mountains with warm sunny days and cool evenings. If possible, make plans to visit for the fall colors which normally reach their peak mid-September to early October.

Fall In the Mountains

Last week I spoke about the Miner’s Day celebrations here in Park City, the parade, festivities in the park and the mucking and drilling contest.

September is a magical time of transition between summer and fall. The days are still quite warm and the nights are noticeably cooler. Because of the cold weather that we had in August, the oak and maple trees have turned and are dotting the hillside with reds and oranges. Hiking and mountain biking are the best right now, the trails are un-crowded and the contrast between the bright blue sky and colorful trees is something to behold.

The three Park City ski resorts are feverishly working to complete summer projects before the first snow of winter arrives. While the economic recession of the past year prevented any of the resorts from significant expansions, there is still much to do over the summer months. The resorts spend the off season doing maintenance on all the chair lifts, clearing aspen growth from ski runs, and general maintenance around the resort to ensure the best quality of experience for our guests. Starting around October we will see the influx of seasonal workers arriving in town. This is a fun time because there is a lot of energy in anticipation of the upcoming ski season.

The real estate market here in Park City continues to improve on a monthly basis. This past week there were two very strong condominium sales in the Empire Pass area of Deer Valley in the high 2-3 million dollar range. In addition, the Dakota Mountain Lodge at the Canyons has just been completed and buyers that have purchased there in the last two years are now closing in their units. This is particularly interesting, as one might expect buyers to be very nervous to be closing on a property that they wrote a contract on two years ago. Fortunately we are seeing the values hold and the buyers are realizing that their investment is still financially sound.

This past week I was asked to help a client find a ski-in/ski-out rental condo for the Christmas-New Years holiday week. I was very surprised at what few choices were still available. There were only about 6 condos still available with ski-in/ski-out access. This is great news, as it looks like visitors will be coming out again and are making plans well in advance.
Next week I will have the most recent statistics from August to share with-you so look for this information in next week’s blog.!

Miners Day Weekend

This coming weekend most everyone is the U.S. will be celebrating Labor Day with parades, festivities and BBQ’s over the 3 day weekend. Here in Park City we celebrate our mining history and consequently re-named the holiday Miner’s Day.

Like everywhere else, we celebrate this with a parade, BBQ, music and festivities at the City Park. We add in the mining twist by bringing out old pneumatic mining drills and have mucking and drilling contests throughout the day. The drilling part of the contest involves taking the extremely heavy and awkward drills and drilling a series of holes in a slab of granite. This is a timed event with the person completing the drilling the in shortest amount of time the victor. The mucking involves an ore cart on a set of tracks and a pneumatic powered shovel in front. The miner lowers the shovel and powers the cart in to a pile of waste rock from the mine, hoists it up and dumps it into the cart. He then backs the cart up and moves in forward into the pile, repeating the process until the cart is full. Again this is a timed event. The contestants are past and current miners from Park City and the surrounding area. One of our other long standing traditions has unfortunately fallen by the wayside. This was the traditional wake up call on Miners day. Until recently at 6am on Miners day the town would light dynamite and explode for about 20 minutes to wake the town up. There was never any chance of sleeping through this as windows and walls shook from the concussion causing family pets to dive for cover and new residents to wonder what was going on.

In Real Estate news the real estate market continues to improve with each week seeming to be stronger than the last in the number of contracts written. This past Monday several Prudential agents were discussing the possibility that we may have passed the bottom of the market. Interestingly in talking with a good friend of mine who is an investment advisor with Smith Barney about downturns in the market, I made the comment that by the time the buying public realizes that we have reached the bottom of the stock market, it is already too late and the bottom has already passed. His reply surprised me when he said that studies have shown that investors who purchased 6 months after the bottom historically have made the largest profit. Can we apply the same analogy to real estate? Most probably so and if both are true that we are past the bottom of the market and are on the upswing and that investors purchasing in the next 6 months are most likely to realize the largest gains, this should be an interesting fall and winter season.

I recently found an article online about pending home sales rising for six months in a row. Click here to read this very interesting article or copy and paste this link into your browser: http://rismedia.com/2009-09-01/pending-home-sales-on-a-roll-up-for-sixth-straight-month/

Miner's Day in Park City

This coming weekend of September 1, 2, and 3rd, while most of the country celebrates Labor Day weekend, here in Park City, we pay tribute to our mining history with “Miner’s Day” celebrations on Monday, September 3rd. This is another example of the small-town flavor of Park City, where we have our traditional parade down Main Street, then activities at City Park. These activities are topped off by the mucking and drilling contests.

These contests involve both and current and former miners from the area, who pit their skills against each other. The drilling competition involves a large block of granite rock in which the miners hoist a heavy and unwieldy pneumatic drill and see who can drill five holes in the smallest amount of time. The mucking competition involves a small ore-cart with a pneumatic scoop shovel attached to the front. This cart and scoop are on a railroad track and are controlled by the operator who moves the scoop into a pile of waste rock and dumps it into the cart behind. This is again a time competition to see who can fill the cart in the least amount of time. The mucking and drilling contests have become the highlight of the day and always draw a large crowd.

We have all been hearing the daily news about the difficulties with the mortgage industry and its effect on the housing market. Park City’s local lenders have been making a point of letting everyone know that because they have portfolio lenders, they are able to make loans on homes, condos and land here in the area. While we have seen some slowdown in the market because of the national news, vacation property is still desirable and Park City remains one of the most desirable resorts in the U.S.

All three ski areas have new home and condominium developments being completed for this upcoming ski season. These developments all have terrific ski access and come in a variety of product from townhouses to homes to multi-level condominium buildings and a little bit of vacant land for homesites. Deer Valley resort is just completing two new condominium buildings on the mountain. Arrowleaf B and the Grand Lodge, both in Empire Pass, are in the final completion stages. At Park City, two new condominium projects: the Lowell, located in the resort center at the base of the mountain, should be completed early this winter, and Silver Star, which is a new project with its own lift, is also being completed. The Canyons resort has several new condominium projects either under construction or about to break ground. With the new lift expansions at the Canyons, these will have very convenient ski access.

Miner’s Day weekend is the traditional end to summer and in Park City, the leaves have begun to change. With the shorter days and cooler nights, the red leaves of the maples are starting to dot the hillsides. This is a terrific time to come out and visit, enjoy the beautiful fall colors and see what’s new at the resorts. For the latest information on any of the new projects or resale condos, please give me a call.