The NEW Magic Mountain

What are the seasonal rentals like in the area? I'm pretty confident that I'll be doing that up in the MT Washington Valley next year. Options are kinda limited in the AirBnB days we live in now, but there are properties available that I could literally rent every season for 30 years and still probably end up spending half what I would trying to buy. I wouldn't have the asset in the end, but I also wouldn't have the ownership headaches.

Vermont is a particularly crummy place to buy second homes if you need to sell within the first seven years.

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Good question re:seasonal rental prices - I don’t know the answer.

But the appeal for me is owning, and having something I can rent out and earn income from. I don’t view a seasonal rental as much of an improvement over my current motels/airbnbs every weekend. If I’m going to limit myself to a location, I want it to be mine

Sales pitch image...

KustyTheKlown said:

Good question re:seasonal rental prices - I don’t know the answer.

But the appeal for me is owning, and having something I can rent out and earn income from. I don’t view a seasonal rental as much of an improvement over my current motels/airbnbs every weekend. If I’m going to limit myself to a location, I want it to be mine

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If you are using the property all winter and only planning on renting it in the summer, I'm betting your income during summer might cover a portion of your off season mortgage payments, but probably not all of it. Southern VT is an absolute ghost town in the summer. My folks travel up from Florida every summer and rent places in Ludlow for really short money.

You'd do better on Bomoseen for rental income in summer, but your acquisition cost for lakefront would be probably triple that of getting a place in Londonderry, nevermind the taxes.

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ugh, i'm working from home today and just turned on the youtube app on my smartTV. the magic live stream was one of the thumbnail options. ouch. decimated yesterday. back to square one. sisyphus. it doesn't deter me from real estate interest tho. its southern vermont in early december. comes with the territory.

deadheadskier said:

What are the seasonal rentals like in the area? I'm pretty confident that I'll be doing that up in the MT Washington Valley next year. Options are kinda limited in the AirBnB days we live in now, but there are properties available that I could literally rent every season for 30 years and still probably end up spending half what I would trying to buy. I wouldn't have the asset in the end, but I also wouldn't have the ownership headaches.

Vermont is a particularly crummy place to buy second homes if you need to sell within the first seven years.

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Rented for the past 10 years, 8 at Magic. The majority of time was in a 4 bedroom house walking distance for ~8-9k plus utilities. It worked great, all winter rental, Nov 15-Apr 15. Has been a great deal as I have split it with my friends, and more recently my in laws. I move in, leave my stuff all winter, and I can go sailing all summer without a moment of worry about how the property in VT is doing.

I tried to justify buying, but I could never make the numbers work. At $250k with a 80% i/o mortgage @4%, I would have interest at $8k, a $50k down payment and opportunity cost associated with missed returns say 6% or $3k, plus property taxes of $3k, insurance of $1k, pretty quickly I am at $14k, not counting maintenance. I could bring the numbers back in line if I rented it out, but I doubt I could earn $5k in rental rates unless I rented it out during peak ski times, which is exactly when I want to use it, defeating the purpose. Renting would also increase insurance, maintenance,etc.

With that said, I plan to throw all logic out the window, buy a place and make it awesome. I love the area and having so many ski and recreational options. But when I do buy a place I will freely admit that I am spending and not investing when I do. In the interim it’s onto seasonal rental year 11, without regrets.




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Kusty this is our Magic intelligent guy. Listen to him. I just post pics. MSB, Kusty is now on the roster.

You guys stop. please. I have to work today.
I looked at all the houses for sale on realtor.com yesterday.
New to looking at this area but jumping in with both feet. I agree with above who said they are cautiously optimistic about an investment in the area. New ownership, a plan, and a new quad going in is very telling of what they want to do here.
Either fix it up nice and finally make money, or at least fix it up and make it attractive to sell to one of the bigger players in the area.
Looking at two other mountains in the immediate area, this is a great place to invest.
Tell me: The Gray condo's on the upper hill by the black lift look relatively new, but I see none for sale?
The "original" condo's below the red lift: some look occupied? But one lot was not plowed, looked like they were almost letting them go to demolish? Is there a plan there?

Investment wise: I think it will always be a lose-lose, you kind of have to accept that. just how much is the question. As above, you/family will want it at peak times. Best you can hope for is some rentals in order to offset the taxes and insurance.

PaulR

BenedictGomez said:

The problem with buying a place near Magic is their lack of snowmaking. You're basically playing Russian roulette on the snow, which isnt something I'd want to do with may ski real estate.

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While this is true right now, every year we add capacity. By year 10 you won't be able to say that anymore, so invest now while the market is low due to the uncertainty you identified if that's what you want to do. Lots of deals off the beaten path.


Also, the closer you get to those "predictable" places, the more you'll spend-and have to deal with, obviously. Ludlow/Rte 100 lakes region is a bit tourist trappy, and can be far more expensive unless you're going ghetto and has a lot of scumbags in town which everyone seems to think they want for proximity to stuff- and it's busy. Too busy for me. I don't see the attraction personally. I always laud the availability of small, modest homes tucked away from the main routes and town amenities. Honestly there isn't much to walk to anyways, so trying to get someplace close to the market or Grill is of very limited usefulness. Heck, there's even places you can pick up that are on the VAST network that will get you really close- or even on the Timber Ridge side so you get that connectivity without all the people. There are a million ways. You'll definitely need a good real estate agent though to nail the right property, and if anybody wants my go-to housing wizard shoot me a PM- she's AWESOME.

The housing market up here is insanely cheap compared to where we moved from (upscale WMass town). If you aren't trying to buy some wildly huge house with a crazy view it's pretty easy to find a cheap secluded cabin away from everything. We live at the end of a dead end road and love the quiet- we had some terrible neighbors in MA and prioritized avoiding the BS of seeing anyone ever.

PaulR said:

You guys stop. please. I have to work today.
I looked at all the houses for sale on realtor.com yesterday.
New to looking at this area but jumping in with both feet. I agree with above who said they are cautiously optimistic about an investment in the area. New ownership, a plan, and a new quad going in is very telling of what they want to do here.
Either fix it up nice and finally make money, or at least fix it up and make it attractive to sell to one of the bigger players in the area.
Tell me: The Gray condo's on the upper hill by the black lift look relatively new, but I see none for sale?
The "original" condo's below the red lift: some look occupied? But one lot was not plowed, looked like they were almost letting them go to demolish? Is there a plan there?

Investment wise: I think it will always be a lose-lose, you kind of have to accept that. just how much is the question. As above, you/family will want it at peak times. Best you can hope for is some rentals in order to offset the taxes and insurance.

PaulR

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Those are called "Trailside". They sell fast and are going up in value quickly. I know of one (one of the only "standalone" units that doesn't share a hallway or ceiling/floor with neighbors) it is FSBO and I think they area asking somewhere in the $115k area if my memory serves me correctly.

Great posts. From everything I've read on the subject a seasonal rental makes the most sense financially but emotionally having a place to call your own is really attractive.

There is also a difference (both in mindset and reality) between a 2nd home and a rental property/2nd home.

When the rental property aspect is thrown into the mix, sure there are/can be financial benefit towards doing that, it also means that you have to plan far ahead as to when you want to try and rent it out, and realize that often the "prime time" for the rentals popularity may be the times you want to ski yourself, and if it's already rented out, and that great powder day happens, your place may not be available if someone has rented it already from you. If you plan on skiing other places while your property is rented, then you loose the convenience of leaving your gear in your 2nd home and have to plan ahead and bring it with you to your primary home and then to where you're going for while your place is rented. Also means that you can't always keep your cabinets and refrigerator as stocked ahead of time as you can if you don't rent it out (especially if you're going to be open to short term, "last minute" rentals via airBNB/VRBO/etc.

If one just looks at their investment as a 2nd home, then much of the planning and prepping ahead of time for what needs to be done to keep it "rental ready" is gone, and you really start to add your own personal touches that you're not worried about if a renter damages/breaks, as well as having the freedom to just randomly hop in your car and show up at your place a few hours later any time you want (especially if its a powder day).

Whichever way works for you is great. Just don't be surprised if one starts with a rental property mindset and then over time you choose to not rent it anymore. Especially if kids, and all of their associated gear (and often seasonal programs) are brought into or are already a part of your family situation

The other thing that I will totally add as a 2nd home owner in Southern VT for almost 14 years now, is that you often buy your property with mainly Winter use as you're primary focus. However, if you've never spent time in the "non snow months" in Southern VT, regardless of what your "usual" non snow month activities are, don't be surprised at all to find yourself using, and wanting to use, your property a fair amount when it's not ski season. It is really a great area all year round

yea. we aren't kids people and don't intend to be parents ever, so we don't have to concern ourselves with any of the kid stuff, which allows us to be more 'rental ready' i think.

i used to airbnb my apartment on the lower east side of manhattan. that was my real primary home. i had two closets and kept one locked with my clothes and valuables. i kept separate bedding. back then i cleaned up after them myself, but now i would pay a service. could easily keep a locked kitchen cabinet for provisions that we don't went renters using. i think we'd be able to make it work with minimal inconvenience to our personal preferences, which are pretty minimalist anyway

i'm fine with carting my gear around. two pairs of skis live in my car all winter and the back seats are half down all the time.

and if i had a place at magic we would surely rent it x-mas, mlk, and president's week. these are all times i get some freebie days off at work and i always ski out west those weeks and will continue to, so i'm happy to make some rental money those periods.

msb, dowork, rg - what's the story with property management/cleaning services to rental ready it when you aren't able to? approx costs?

sledride said:

seasonal rental makes the most sense financially but emotionally having a place to call your own is really attractive.

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True on both counts.

As a finance person, it would be difficult for me psychologically to "buy", precisely for the former. Especially when in such an area if you do find a great seasonal rental, it behooves both parties to enter into a "long-term", annual agreement. So you can likely have the same place year-after-year anyway.

here's the house i found yesterday that i'm kind of obsessed with. just can't do it now. i love the location, the small lot with nice stonework and little yard, the floors, the kitchen pass thru, the kitchen nook with the beams. love it. doesn't seem to need much work. maybe some new kitchen appliances. no pics of bathroom situation.

https://www.tpwrealestate.com/listing/4784526/5892-100-route-londonderry-vt-05148/

My 2 cents from someone living on Long Island who bought a condo at Bromley 6 years ago.

Buy vs. rent - we spend a decent amount of time in SoVT in summer and fall which made the economics of buying vs. renting more attractive, and are grateful we had the option to buy. We did 2 seasonal rentals and if we only visited SoVT to ski we would not have bought a place. Its great to have a place that is yours, year round.

Bromley? As we are primarily weekend/holiday skiers we wanted to avoid the crowds at the bigger resorts. Bromley and Magic fit the bill. 6 years ago Magic was too risky an option to buy, and you get much more space for the money at Bromley vs. larger resorts. Magic and Bromley very much compliment one another - I'm a passholder at both.

Location - no way we were going further than a 4 hour good weather/good traffic drive. In ideal conditions its a 3:45 drive time, so even with issues its rarely longer than 4:30. SoVT was the obvious choice. The golden triangle more so with the three areas, plus Mt Snow, Okemo and Killington all within 1 hour, and family at Sugarbush less than 2.

Pleasant surprise - swimming holes, ponds and lakes.

Disappointments - can never get up as much as I want, but this would be the case no matter how much I visit and will only change when I move permanently.

Simply love it up there.

Krusty: I'm clicking that next!
Slatham: Good info. Golden triangle, that's the term I was looking for! I just looked at a few condos for sale at Bromley. I love it, could do it, want to do it......but same result as when I looked at Mt snow. The $400 per month condo fees are the killer. I could "afford" it, but I really don't want to afford it because it's simply pissing away money as far as I'm concerned. It's like you own it, but you never really ever stop paying for it.
Again, from the accountants perspective: go in knowing its a losing investment and you'll be fine. lol.

Depends what you get for the HOA fees and if it completely cancels out the maintenance costs and aggravation of owning

KustyTheKlown said:

here's the house i found yesterday that i'm kind of obsessed with. just can't do it now. i love the location, the small lot with nice stonework and little yard, the floors, the kitchen pass thru, the kitchen nook with the beams. love it. doesn't seem to need much work. maybe some new kitchen appliances. no pics of bathroom situation.

https://www.tpwrealestate.com/listing/4784526/5892-100-route-londonderry-vt-05148/

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Yep, saw that.
1910 stone foundation, full crawl space basement...can you say "critters?" lol
can be fixed though if your industrious.
Electric heat too, I'd convert to propane, or add propane somehow, fireplace etc.

If I buy it, I'll invite you over for sure.
I was in Brooklyn for the first time recently, saw Trampled by Turtles at the Brooklyn Bowl.
Nice city you've got there....you people drive like absolute animals. :grin:

I used to live near bk bowl, and it was home base for my friends from ~2009-2011 when we are all post college and fun. we live in Brooklyn Heights now. It’s more adulty.