Texas billionaire Red McCombs has spent 36 years vying for access to a 300-acre inholding on Wolf Creek Pass where he plans a resort village for 10,000 residents.
resort real estate
Posted inNews, Outdoors, Outsider
Record high calls for help are stressing Colorado’s mountain firefighters, emergency responders
There are more people living in their vacation homes in Colorado’s resort communities. There are more people visiting and staying in short-term rental homes. “But it’s a challenge to quantify any of this,” said Jake Andersen, deputy chief of operations for the Aspen Fire Protection District. Fire chiefs like Andersen can gauge one impact of […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Outdoors, Outsider
Epic crowds are colliding with epic labor shortages at ski areas
Alex Kaufman thought it would be an amusing website. Something to poke fun at the largest resort operator in North America. So he bought epicliftlines.com for $12 last March, just as Vail Resorts announced a plan to slash the price of its popular Epic Pass by 20%. “I thought ‘Oh, this could become a thing. […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Outdoors, Outsider
Jeff Hermanson, developer of Denver’s Larimer Square and Union Station, is investing big in Crested Butte
There’s a new heavyweight investor buying up properties on Crested Butte’s historic Elk Avenue. But this time it’s not a reclusive billionaire from afar. Jeff Hermanson, who transformed Denver’s Larimer Square and Union Station, has lived in Crested Butte for 48 years. And he’s buying commercial properties on what he calls “one of the greatest […]
Posted inHousing, News
Aspen suspends new home construction permits as it drops the hammer in the name of affordability
Aspen’s city council this week stopped issuing not just short-term rental permits, but permits for all home construction as the city struggles with a critical lack of affordable housing and the increasing use of homes by vacationers. A moratorium, passed unanimously by emergency ordinance Wednesday night after two meetings in two days, goes beyond suspending […]
Posted inBusiness, Growth, Housing, News, Outsider
As record-setting real estate sales continue in Colorado resort towns, buyers are now looking way down valley
The blistering pace of real estate sales is continuing in Colorado’s high country, with every resort community setting new records in each month this year. “It’s been crazy,” Crested Butte broker Frank Konsella said, “way past everything in 2019 and 2020.” Last year saw record numbers of home buyers paying highest-ever prices for properties in […]
Posted inBusiness, Housing, News, Outsider
Flooded with tourists, Colorado mountain towns are starting to limit short-term rentals to combat housing crisis
Short-term rental properties are under fire in the Colorado mountains as communities weather record traffic, a surge of new residents, soaring home prices and a painful shortage of workers. “We are beaten down. Everybody is overworked. We have way too many people here and it’s not sustainable and it’s not productive,” Martha Keene, a longtime […]
Posted inBusiness, Housing, News
Survey of Colorado’s high-country residents a “wake-up call” on the devastating implications of the affordable housing crisis
A first-of-its-kind survey of thousands of Colorado mountain town residents has delivered the clearest look at the impact of the pandemic on housing, rentals and lifestyles in the high country to date. And the news is not good. Wealthy newcomers are displacing locals. Businesses are struggling to hire staff. The crowds are growing in the […]
Posted inBusiness, Housing, News, Newsletters, Outdoors, Outsider
Here are some of the radical ideas to help alleviate Colorado’s high-country housing crisis
Jill Voyles knew the first year would not be easy. But it would be worth it for her and husband, Brendan McClarney, to move their three daughters to Crested Butte from St. Louis, Missouri. Then right after they arrived last spring, everything shut down. McClarney’s job as a construction project manager evaporated. So did Voyles’ […]
Posted inBusiness, Growth, Housing, News, Newsletters, Outsider
Record-breaking real estate frenzy is changing the culture of Colorado’s mountain towns as locals are priced out
Brianna Anthony and her boyfriend, Keenan Montague, have lived in three homes over the past six months in Telluride. The five-bedroom house that the local bartenders rented with friends sold last fall, and the new owner, an East Coast doctor with a home in nearby Mountain Village, launched a major renovation. They moved into another […]