Another shaky real estate story

Over a decade ago, I worked with a company associated with a famous real-estate developer that always professed that large homes in ski resorts would always sell extremely well to wealthy families that would see in them a family meeting-place where multi-generations would congregate and partake in mountain living for ever and ever.

On paper that tale sounded good, sold well, but failed to stand the test of time and of common sense.

First, a large home comes with constant, massive headaches as they invariably need lots of maintenance and are fraught with incessant costly problems especially on account of an extreme climate and limited use (most second homes get occupied 20 to 30 days a year).

Second, another side to that fallacious tale is that whatever the parents happen to love about mountain living isn't necessarily their kids' taste and even less their significant others'; then it goes downhill from there with grand kids and even their own children.

The result is that Park City currently shows a glut of expensive homes for sale and the priciest they are, the slower they seem to move. We are not talking about condominium properties that also are available in large numbers; just large single family homes.

Consider this:
Our market currently has 75 houses for sale priced over $5 million, 23 houses from $4 to $5 million, 46 from $3 to $4 million and 71 from $2 to $3 million for a total of 212 mountain houses.

My sense is that these big houses (at least over 5,000 square feet) are seen as “uncool” white elephants to own these days as they generally make poor use of natural resources and are seen as an environmental embarrassment.

The future of these houses and their resale ability has become a huge question mark, something I'm not too bullish about...