Snow skiing is a popular U.S. pastime that attracts millions of Americans to the slopes each winter. Some 60 million skiers flocked to the mountains last year, and a survey conducted by American Express revealed many more would do if it were in the budget. Real estate reports from Zillow and Trulia show that owning a piece of the mountain is easier now than ever as prices and interest rates continue to drop. Some of the best ski-in/ski-out properties are located in: Park City, Utah; Big Sky and Whitefish, Montana; Jackson, Wyoming; and Aspen, Colorado. For more on this continue reading the following article from TheStreet.
Ski season has vacationers searching ski-in/ski-out winter hideaways, but the savvy ski bums with stellar credit can call their slope-side apres ski spots home this season.
About three in 10 Americans are hitting the road this holiday season, according to the American Express(AXP) Spending and Savings Tracker, and spending more than $200 per person doing so. If they had an extra $500 to throw around, however, 19% of respondents told American Express that they'd put it toward having an outdoor adventure during their holiday trip, and 4% mentioned skiing specifically.
Those dreamers and travelers would only add to the accumulating demand the ski industry's experienced since the recession. After U.S. ski resorts saw skier and snowboarder numbers take a double-diamond slide from 60.5 million during the 2007-08 season to 57.4 million a year later, the industry saw a record 60.5 million people hit the trails last season, according to the National Ski Areas Association. That helped increase the ski industry's revenue 8.5% last year, to $2.4 billion, according to IBISWorld, and pushed the number of ski resorts in the U.S. from 471 in 2009-10 to 486 last season.
If skiers and snowboarders want a more permanent address than the local lodge or vacation cabin, however, now might be the time to make that happen in America's more popular ski spots. The Rocky Mountains account for more than one-third of all U.S. skiing and snowboarding after packing 20.9 million people onto the slopes last year. That's up from the 19.97 million who showed up at the height of the recession in 2008-09 but is still inching up to the Rockies' pre-recession peak of 21.3 million the season before.
Concurrently, the median home price in the West has dropped 3.1% since September 2010 and went off a cliff from $312,300 in 2008 to just $259,300 in September, according to the National Association of Realtors. Those fortunes vary from trail to trail, however, as Boulder, Colo., saw housing prices rise 5.1% during the same span and has an average median home price more than $10,000 higher than 2008 levels. Denver home prices, meanwhile, flattened out within the past year but are nearly $20,000 higher than they were pre-recession.
If a skier's credit is purer than fresh powder, Freddie Mac notes that a 3.94% rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage awaits out West this week. Those dreaming of getting a downhill to themselves at dawn, however, may place a bit more of a premium on ski-in/ski-out access. With that at stake, we consulted with the folks at real estate sites Zillow(ZLL) and Trulia, aimed for the top of the mountain and found five ski towns where properties with prime access and amenities await:
Park City, Utah
Film geeks love this town when the Sundance Film Festival rolls around in January, but this is ski country pure and simple.
Park City gives skiers their choice of the Park City, Deer Valley and Canyons resorts, but also has a ski jump and bobsled, luge and skeleton track courtesy of the Utah Olympic Park built for the 2002 Winter Games. It's not only the home of the U.S. ski team and the training ground for some of Australia's ski athletes, but also the U.S. base of operations for French ski company Rossignol and sport-centric headphone maker Skullcandy(SKUL).
Park City is also just inarguably gorgeous, and few places show off that beauty better than the 7,000-square-foot, four-bedroom, four-and-a-half bathroom home just beneath the town lift. At the convergence point of several Park City ski trails, the house offers a private gated driveway, floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the mountain and town below, fireplaces, heated patios, a two-car garage and little touches such as mosaic tile and a basin tub in the master bathroom. The cost of this 1995-vintage slope side estate: $4.6 million.
It's tough to make a house like that seem like a castoff in the bargain bin, but a Ski Magazine-featured winter dream home across town makes every attempt to do just that. Listed at more than 13,500 square feet, six bedrooms, eight bathrooms and $21.9 million, this compound counts ski access among the least of its features.
That ski-in/ski-out access to Deer Valley's Mountaineer ski run is just a throw-in compared with the panoramic views, stone fireplace and chimney in the great room, heated outdoor pool and waterfall, wine cellar, custom elevator, full day spa, golf simulator, custom elevator and 550-gallon aquarium. The previous owners didn't skimp on the details, either. The 4,500 square feet of decks are all heated, the rec room has its own fully equipped DJ booth and the home theater isn't just some roll-down screen parked in front of oversized chairs with cup holders, but an actual theater with a gilded, ornamented dome ceiling and proscenium stage complete with spotlights, footlights and retractable curtains.
That the owners are selling it with all the furnishings but "some art excluded" gives some idea of exactly what company this place has been keeping since it was built in 2007. The skiing must have been a lovely distraction.
Big Sky, Mont.
The Gallatin River and its feeder rivers and ponds make this a prime spot for fly fishing, kayaking and rafting during the summer, but the ski season is the big draw in this southwest corner of Big Sky Country.
The Big Sky Ski Resort and Moonlight Basin pull in most of the skiers and snowboarders, but Lone Mountain Ranch's Nordic courses throw a bone to cross-country skiers while the tony Club at Spanish Peaks and Yellowstone Club -- which cost $250,000 to join, $20,000 a year to maintain a membership and $5 million to nearly $40 million per home -- bring out the big spenders. Those high rollers don't make Big Sky as expensive as Park City, but they don't exactly keep things cheap, either.
A ski-in/ski-out home in Moonlight puts three bedrooms and three bathrooms in 3,000 square feet of space on a full acre. The wall of windows beside the living room fireplace, the pop-out window bench in the same living room and the hot tub on the deck overlook three different peaks. Those are about all of the luxuries the $1.4 million asking price covers, however, as the trail access and proximity to fresh, untouched powder is this place's key selling point.
If buyers are looking for just a bit more pampering for the price, a large home with five bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms and a view of the Spanish Peaks may be the answer. A ski run right next to the house provides a quick path to Moonlight Basin's high-speed lift, but panoramic views from just about every room in the house, five fireplaces (including one on the covered deck), a sprawling chef's kitchen and two acres of surrounding property are fairly plush, even at their $3 million price tag.