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Aspen Fall Real Estate Update!

1330 West Buttermilk Road, Aspen
1330 West Buttermilk Road, Aspen

The leaves are falling all around and we're about one month away from Opening Day for the 2023-24 winter ski season. Let's take a look at the current state of the Aspen/Snowmass real estate market!

Moving through October, market dynamics in Aspen itself are tracking much the same as they did over the summer, still slightly favoring buyers as indicated by the following meter enclosed in Title Company of the Rockies' most recent Market Action Index.

October 16

Three-quarters of the way through 2023, both total volume and overall inventory have fallen off of summer highs a bit but the market remains strong. The summer was indeed a good one as July and August marked the first time monthly sales outpaced 2022. More properties came online for sale during this time as reflected in the small decline in price per square foot, but the total number of transactions also declined from last summer. The overall pace has slowed and more buyers are taking their time before closing.

Prices (both median and per square foot) took a jump up from the summer. Let's dig in to our select categories below for a more detailed picture.

Click here for the complete report including category breakdowns!

Posted in: Blog, Featured, Featured Blog Posts, Real Estate, Uncategorized Tagged: Aspen, Aspen Real Estate, Aspen Real Estate Market, Aspen Snowmass, snowmass real estate

Aspen Summer Real Estate Update!

953 W. Smuggler St., Aspen - for sale!
953 W. Smuggler St., Aspen - for sale!

Summer is definitely here - we've passed the solstice and Independence Day and are well on our way through July. It's time for an updated look at the state of the Aspen/Snowmass real estate market!

Midway through 2023 we’re seeing that inventory has rebounded a bit from historic lows last year but still remains well off the highs of 2019 and prior. The most recent snapshot from Land Title Guarantee shows the following:

June 2023 - Pitkin County(1)

The total sold volume has dropped from this spring and even the month of May. Mortgage rates and recent tax assessments may be taking a toll (read on for more about this below). It's well off the remarkable highs from 2021 and 2022 caused by pent up demand during the pandemic.

Click here for the complete report including category breakdowns!

Posted in: Blog, Featured, Featured Blog Posts, Real Estate, Uncategorized Tagged: Aspen, Aspen Real Estate, Aspen Real Estate Market, Aspen Snowmass, snowmass real estate

Fall 2022 Aspen Snowmass Market Update

We’ve had our first snowstorm of the season on the heels of weeks of gorgeous autumn weather. With town pretty quiet it’s a great time to pick our heads up, look at the big picture and, most importantly, get excited for the coming winter. It is true that so many of us came for the winters but stayed for the summers but skiing and riding does remain central to our lives and all of us here certainly are looking forward to getting back to what drew us here.

This fall, picking our heads up and taking quantitative look at the market has been particularly interesting. The Aspen Chamber Resort Association recently published their statistics for the 2022 summer season. As a result, we can now get a sense of where the market is trending, what the impact of the pandemic has been, and what that means for our clients. Whether you are considering entering the real estate market, assessing your real estate options, or simply planning your holidays here, it’s worthwhile taking a few minutes to consider what the numbers are showing us.

We’ve been working recently with our friends at Permafrost Information Strategies to better understand the long- and short-term impact of the pandemic on our marketplace, and their insightful analysis certainly has helped to crystalize our thinking. Along with Permafrost, we use lodging occupancy rates for Aspen Snowmass as a bellwether of our local economy. Though obviously limited in scope to one particular sector of the vacationing pubic, we find occupancy data to be a concise lens through which to see long-term trends for how our resort is doing generally. When assessing the impact of the pandemic on the market and looking ahead to what we expect from this winter, weekly and monthly occupancy averages against historical figures have been our focus. Looking at the recently released data from the busy 2022 summer season here provides us with the big picture view that we’ve been anxiously awaiting – it allows us to see the way in which the Aspen Snowmass lodging and real property markets may move post-pandemic and what long-term effects from the pandemic we are likely to see.

What Recent Data Shows About the COVID-19 Pandemic

What’s clear from the data is that we can now draw a tight circle around the months where occupancy was impacted directly by the pandemic. Those months that we view as skewing historical averages and affecting long-term trending are generally March 2020 through and including March 2021. While occupancy rates for February 2021, for example, were still significantly below long-term February averages, March 2021 saw a notable up-tick. March 2021 was still slightly below the seven March averages immediately preceding the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, but it did prove to be a significant correction from the pandemic months. Occupancy rates in April 2021 were strong compared to historical averages; and December 2021, and February and March 2022 saw the highest average occupancy rates for those months. Simply put, we can now see the big picture and understand it, and the way the data is trending it looks as though winter season occupancy is back to “normal” rates and that data demonstrates a general trend of growth similar to what we saw in the pre-pandemic winter seasons. As Permafrost’s Russ Kauff emphasizes, this analysis is not merely about throwing out high and low periods of economic performance so as to not include ‘force majeure’ and the like from our long-term view of discretionary spending; it’s about understanding how consumers prioritize components of their spending, where Aspen Snowmass fits into their thinking about their spending, and how their long-term behavior may be affected.

Summer and Shoulder-Season 2022

It is worth noting that the data from the summer months during the pandemic is where the most interesting trends have been in terms of what it tells us about how visitors’ behavior changed. In short, occupancy rates for the summer months were exceptionally strong in 2021 and 2022. Not surprisingly, we attribute this to travel having been curtailed and remote work having spiked significantly during those periods. Charting June, July and August over a long period that includes pre-pandemic years clearly shows summer 2022 to have been a return to pre-COVID trending, and the same is true of the traditionally quieter months of September and October.

Notably, August 2022 saw gross occupancy rates slightly lower than 2021 though still strong taking a long-term historical view. Internally, Russ at Permafrost has been using the tongue-in-cheek metaphor of ‘nesting travel versus adventure travel’ to describe how consumer behavior differed between the summers of 2021 and 2022. Synthesizing why that happened clearly involves a combination of a strong US dollar and pent-up demand for international travel as European nations in particular reduced or eliminated COVID restrictions. Still, taking the long view shows August 2022 to have been slightly less exceptional, perhaps less exuberant, but still quite strong and trending towards long-term growth.

Like the occupancy rates for summer 2022, we do expect some small amount of moderation of the spikes over the next couple of years. Still, as described above, we nonetheless foresee the progressive upward trend from the pre-pandemic years to continue.

The Effects of Short-Term Rentals

One of the shortcomings of the available data is that measuring ‘homeowner occupancy’ or the performance of Airbnb and VRBO properties as a way of generating a quantitative understanding of true lodging business levels is a challenging proposition. Anecdotally, summer 2022 certainly felt like an exceptionally busy season here in the Roaring Fork Valley. From a broader economic perspective, valley businesses that serve our guests did maintain notably high business levels throughout the summer months of 2022, and the numerous events that had been curtailed during the pandemic (Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, the Aspen Ideas Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Jazz Aspen Snowmass, etc.) returned to enormous fanfare and record crowds. Again, it’s possible that this was attributable to that elusive ‘homeowner occupancy’ level, though that is speculative. There are some interesting new analytical tools making use of web search algorithms to derive short-term rental variations on traditional occupancy rate data, and we expect to be able to provide greater insight to our clients about those platforms later this year.

Looking Ahead, and Looking Forward to Winter

Where does this analysis leave us and what are we seeing and thinking here in our hometown of Aspen? The good news, we think, is that it leaves us approximately where we were pre-pandemic. Demand for lodging in Aspen Snowmass continues to grow at a rate that is consistent and far less elastic (to be polite) that the widely publicized single-family residential property market here.

We believe that in the long term, Aspen Snowmass resort’s combination of limited hotel space, numerous hotel branded rental and ownership properties, and in-town short-term rental properties dampens the volatility which characterizes the top end of the private property market in recent quarters. This gives us confidence for the upcoming winter season. In short, we expect to welcome a great many guests to our mountains this winter, and we expect to see Aspen Snowmass continue to solidify its’ place in the hierarchy of North American vacation marketplaces. As always, we hope all of our guests fall in love with Aspen Snowmass in the same way we did when we arrived here thirty years ago, and that is a major part of why we derive such joy from working with our real estate clients.

The data compiled by the Aspen Chamber Resort Association and discussed here is available at Occupancy Reports | Aspen (aspenchamber.org)

Posted in: Blog, Featured Blog Posts, Real Estate, Uncategorized Tagged: Aspen, Aspen Real Estate, Aspen Real Estate Market, Aspen Snowmass, Pandemic Real Estate Market, Ski Season 2022-23, Snowmass, snowmass real estate, Winter 22-23

Aspen Non-Stop Air Options Increase!

aspen airport united flight

Austin, TX and Orange County, CA Now Offer New Non-Stop Service to Aspen for 2021/22!

According to last week's Aspen Times, "nonstop commercial flights to Aspen-Pitkin County Airport from up to six airports between Texas and California are part of a schedule that is all but finalized for the upcoming winter ski season."

The newest locations for non-stop service include Orange County, California and Austin, Texas.

“I think this is a pretty solid plan,” said Bill Tomcich, a consultant to Fly Aspen Snowmass, which is an alliance among Aspen Skiing Co., Aspen-Pitkin County Airport, Aspen Chamber Resort Association and Snowmass Tourism.

On Friday, what Tomcich said is the final piece to the winter flight schedule came with the announcement of two daily direct flights between Santa Ana, California, and Aspen. United Airlines will offer the flights starting Dec. 16 and running through March 26. The incoming, nonstop flights to Aspen will originate from John Wayne Airport.

Image 9-2-21 at 10.54 AM

The two newcomers join San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Dallas, Houston, Chicago and Atlanta giving guests a wider choice of route options than the town has had in many years. This is surely a sign of the continued popularity of Aspen/Snowmass as a vacation destination. 

Now that you know how to get here why not pay us a visit this winter? Gareth can connect you with the best possible luxury lodging whenever you choose to come! Call (970) 309-7649 or email him at [email protected] and reserve your accommodations today!

Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged: Airlines, Aspen, Aspen Airport, Aspen Snowmass, Skiing, Snowmass Village, Winter Recreation

Living Large in Aspen

@legoskierbro

Proving that Aspen appeals to guests of all sizes, @legoskierbro has carved out a following of over 28,000 fans on Instagram by living the Aspen lifestyle to its fullest.

The diminutive celebrity stands only 1.5 inches (or 3.81 centimeters) but that doesn't inhibit his ability to make the most of his time on the slopes.

@legoskierbro

According to the Aspen Times, "He skins up Aspen Mountain to watch the New Year’s Eve fireworks like a true local, dresses up as a hot dog to take part in closing day festivities and charges through chest-deep powder, finding fresh lines on every mountain he visits. This winter he’s posted from the Powder Awards and tallied likes for straight-lining Ozone in Highland Bowl, chopping down his own Christmas tree and shredding with #LegoSanta at the North Pole."

He rides with a crew of friends including #legoskierbabe, #legobrad, #legosnowboardbro, his robot #legoskierbot and his faithful companion #legodog (pictured up top).

The Aspen Times Weekly recently tracked him down and asked him a few questions.

ATW: What do you love about the Aspen area?

LSB: Aspen-Snowmass in the winter is the best place on Earth. There is snow everywhere and most days are sunny with clouds in the distance. What else could you want?

ATW: What is your favorite line to shred in Aspen-Snowmass?

LSB: I can shred anything, anywhere, anytime, but most of the time I’m skiing double black diamonds on the Crown Jewel. My favorite place to be is right in front of skiers who think they are better than me. I’ve never cared about being better than anyone (or everyone for that matter) when it comes to my skiing, but I am constantly surrounded by exceptional skiers who end up making me look even better. I’m not going to give away my favorite stashes; you could torture me and I would never tell — I don’t want them to get tracked out!

ATW: You share a lot of good tips on #ProTipTuesday, but what’s the best tip you’ve got to share?

LSB: I’ve given a lot of advice over the years, but the main thing I would like to impart is that you should be yourself and do something original — because that’s what everyone really wants to see.

ATW: Who makes a better ski/adventure companion? #legobrad, #legodog, #legoskierbot, #legosnowboardbro or #legoskierbabe?

LSB: My whole crew helps me survive and I need them to tell my story. #legoskierbabe has to be my number one, but #legodog and #legobrad are both a close second. #legoskierbot was fun to have around but he didn’t come around too much last year after his malfunction. #legosnowboardbro is perfect when you want to wait for him to buckle his back binding.

Size only matters when it comes to snow out here. You, your family and your friends can follow the Bro's lead and live large out here too. Give Gareth a call at (970) 309-7649 and book your vacation!

Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged: Aspen, Instagram, Lego, Skiing

SKI Magazine – Aspen Snowmass Named “Resort of the Year”

Aspen Highlands

Aspen Gets the Honors

What makes a resort special? For SKI Magazine the answer lies in a having a variety of amenities including terrain, fun for the whole family, and great apres-ski and nightlife options. This year, Aspen Snowmass checks all the boxes and was named SKI Magazine’s No. 1 ski “resort of the year” in the West.

SKI Magazine unveiled its debut “Resorts of the Year” issue in October, with categories featuring “Best in the West” and “Best in the East.” Smugglers’ Notch in Vermont is ranked the top ski resort of the East.

These two resorts garnered editor and reader praise for offering skiers the best overall vacation experiences, according to a statement from SKI Magazine.

“With its variety of terrain across four resorts, family-friendly offerings and virtually unmatched dining, lodging and apres in the vibrant town of Aspen, Aspen Snowmass delivers the whole package,” SKI Magazine content director Samantha Berman said in the statement. “Add to that the resort management’s forward-thinking attitude toward the environment and its inclusion in the industry-changing Ikon Pass, and we feel that Aspen-Snowmass is the destination generating the most buzz going into this season.”

Great Amenities

The magazine writes, “the four mountains that make up Aspen Snowmass are the gold standard for American skiing. Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands, Buttermilk, and Snowmass each have their own character, which is why most skiers visit a different mountain each day of their visit.

The Dumps on Aspen Mountain or the glades beneath Snowmass’s High Alpine Lift are a must when it’s snowing, while the breathtaking descent of Highlands Bowl or the empty, perfect groomers of Tiehack beg for attention when the sky is blue. If the renown nightlife stretches on too long, at least one mountain will have a daily noon groomer on the weekends, keeping the corduroy fresh for those who hit the snooze button too many times.

The world-class ski school can get the kids carving at Buttermilk or Snowmass while Mom and Dad can enjoy the decadent pleasures of top-to-bottom gondola laps or the infamous 2:30 p.m. seating at Cloud 9 Bistro, all before a perfect family rendezvous for dinner in town. ”

Read more at: https://www.skimag.com/ski-resort-life/aspen-snowmass-colorado

Posted in: Blog Tagged: Aspen, Aspen Skiing Company, Aspen Snowmass, Colorado, Ski Magazine, Skiing, Snowboarding, Winter Sports

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About Gareth Williams

As an experienced Aspen real estate broker specializing in vacation rentals featuring luxury lodging at St. Regis Aspen, Ritz-Carlton Club Aspen Highlands and Aspen Mountain Residences, I provide my clients exceptional pricing and outstanding customer service to ensure a wonderful luxury vacation rental experience in Aspen, Colorado. Gareth Williams Aspen Snowmass Real Estate also offers a comprehensive portfolio of luxury homes for sale in Aspen, Aspen Highlands and Snowmass Village, Colorado. Book online or call me directly! Read more ...

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