Property investors can now study a league table of American ski resorts offering the best investment potential. The report — compiled by US property firm Realty Trac— identifies 19 US locations with high quality ski resorts and ranks them according to the health of the local market and the possibility of acquiring profitable investment properties. Top of this year’s list is Whitefish Mountain in Montana.
The company used several qualifying factors before compiling its shortlist. All the towns needed to have a population of at least 2,500 and at least one nearby ski resort that ranked in the top 50 of the 182 locations featured in Forbes magazine’s ‘Pure Awesomeness Factor’ and which were graded on the quality of the skiing and snowboarding experience.
The remaining 19 towns were then ranked again, combining their PAF rating — a PAF score is the accepted “scientific” way to determine how much fun you can get from a ski trip — and key local factors, such as the distance to the nearest airport, the town’s unemployment rate, residential property prices, rental vacancy rate and gross yield on a rental property. It also factored in the 2013 foreclosure rate and the foreclosure percent change from 2010.
Whitefish Mountain in north-western Montana came top with the lowest property price of any of 18 rivals. It also had the lowest rental vacancy rate and the biggest drop in foreclosures. In order, the remaining top five towns were: Vail in Colorado, Truckee next to the Squaw Valley resort in California, Avon near Beaver Creek in Colorado, and Jackson Hole.
Other towns with high-rated ski resorts ranked lower for real estate investing for a variety of factors, such as high unemployment rate, dearer than average home prices and high rental vacancy rates.
The rest of the top 10 include Tellerude in Colorado, Bozeman in Montana, Mammoth Lakes in California, Mount Bachelor in Oregon and Park City in Utah.
The remaining locations were: Steamboat Springs in Colorado, Red Lodge Mountain in Montana, South Lake Tahoe in California, Aspen in Colorado, Ketchum near the Sun Valley Ski Resort in Idaho, Taos in New Mexico, Crested Butt, Breckenridge and Snowmass in Colorado.
As the US economy recovers property values are once again beginning to rise and ski holidays are regaining their attraction. In 2006 the popularity of ski-property investments was at an all-time high. Since the economic downturn, the market has weakened year on year, with less investors taking a chance on resort properties. Throughout 2013 the market showed signs of a healthy revival, with enquiries and sales both up 50 per cent on the previous year.
“Buyers considering investing in a property should find one that is easy to get to for themselves and potential rental visitors and look carefully at gross yields as the higher the yield the better the chance of covering the cost of the property,” the property firm explained.
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