Originally posted by @Earl McFarland:
Aspen or Vail Colorado
"Money never sleeps" in either town. Both have RE values that have increased for 50+ years, just ask someone who passed on an opportunity in the 70' or 80's.
Aspen real estate isn't exactly "bustling" right now:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-27/“i’ve-nev...
From the article:
“People are worried about all kinds of stuff these days,” says longtime Aspen broker Bob Ritchie. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
The speed of the collapse has been stunning. Until just last year, the local market was beyond robust, with Pitkin County real estate sales hitting $2 billion in 2015, a 33% annual increase driven largely by sales of homes in Aspen, where prices average $7.7 million.
This year, however, "a slowdown in January turned into a free fall." Sales volume in Pitkin County is down 42%, according to data compiled by Land Title Guarantee Co.
Almost all of that decline is coming from Aspen, where the market is frozen. Sales in the Aspen-Snowmass market in the first half of the year were the bleakest since the first half of 2009, and inventory soared to levels not seen since the recession."
The statistics are stunning: single-family home sales in Aspen are down 62% in dollar volume through the first-half of the year. Sales of homes priced at $10 million or more — almost always paid for in cash — are down 60%. Last year, super-high-end transactions accounted for nearly a third of sales volume in Pitkin County.
“The high-end buyer has disappeared,” said Tim Estin, an Aspen broker whose Estin Report analyzes the Aspen-Snowmass real estate market.
"Aspen has never experienced such a sudden and precipitous drop in real estate sales," according to the post.
Worse, it's not just the collapse in the number of transaction: even more disconcerting for brokers who have always trumpeted Aspen as a safe and lucrative place to park a huge pile of money: Prices are dropping.
In the first half of this year, the average price per square foot of Aspen homes dropped 22 percent to $1,095 from $1,338 in 2015. Recent Aspen sales also closed at more than 15 percent below listing price, a rare discount.
