Ideal ski towns for the future factoring in all issues?

[kbroderick]

Per Google Maps, 32 minutes to Bolton, which is one of my new favorites. Under an hour to Smuggs and Stowe. If $ wasn’t a factor, Burlington would be amazing.

32 minutes to BV from downtown, maybe; I lived in the New North End and commuted to work at BV for a couple of years, and 32 minutes would've been a record door-to-door time, even in perfect weather.

Under an hour to Stowe this year probably only applies before 5 a.m. or if you're starting from the cross-country center. Epic success in drawing people there this year.

 

[SenorQuesadilla]

Sandpoint not being a ski town while being a ski town is a big plus in my opinion. Spent a good amount of time in Spokane the last few weeks before entering+after leaving Canada, was surprised at how much I liked it. Rossland being 2 hours and Fernie being a bit over 3 is a big plus too.

 

[BenedictGomez]

With a non-skiing, urban-oriented wife, I am giving this some serious consideration.

There's really nothing urban about Burlington. Not a terrible spot for skiing though, but I'd prefer to live closer if that was the main gist of my move.

 

[BenedictGomez]

this article basically says nyc/la people displace austin/denver people, who displace spokane people.

 

[jimk]

This was a great thread!

Bumping it, but I have nothing really new to add. I don't think the dust has yet settled on what the post-pandemic real estate market is going to look like in ski country. Demand may be less, but prices are still high. Remote working is still a factor allowing some people to relocate to rural/ski town locations, but others have been called back to regular hours in urban offices.

 

[BodeMiller1]

View attachment 53543

And the beat goes on...

 

[BenedictGomez]

I don't think the dust has yet settled on what the post-pandemic real estate market is going to look like in ski country. Demand may be less, but prices are still high. Remote working is still a factor allowing some people to relocate to rural/ski town locations, but others have been called back to regular hours in urban offices.

That's about right from what I'm hearing, but likely not a bullish harbinger for the future. My real estate agent says it's pretty dead right now, but that whatever sales are being effected are like 100% out-of-staters (also not a bullish harbinger for the future).

 

[IceEidolon]

I turned down several Northeast Mtn Ops jobs for housing reasons. It's maybe not as bad as it could be, but it's sure not good. I don't see how anyone who didn't inherit land is supposed to work in any kind of retail/tourism/basic services job. Maybe we see restaurants with employee housing over top of 'em come back, I don't know. Something's gotta change.

 

[deadheadskier]

I turned down several Northeast Mtn Ops jobs for housing reasons. It's maybe not as bad as it could be, but it's sure not good. I don't see how anyone who didn't inherit land is supposed to work in any kind of retail/tourism/basic services job. Maybe we see restaurants with employee housing over top of 'em come back, I don't know. Something's gotta change.

Happening locally by me in Portsmouth already

Portsmouth restaurant closing for renovations that will add housing for staff

A Portsmouth restaurant is closing its doors after this weekend and won't open again until next year after a renovation that will help its workers.

www.wmur.com

There are other hospitality businesses with similar plans for housing locally.

It's not just hospitality businesses, but healthcare too. Both UVM health and Dartmouth Hitchcock are investing massively in staff housing.

 

[1dog]

Happening locally by me in Portsmouth already

Portsmouth restaurant closing for renovations that will add housing for staff

A Portsmouth restaurant is closing its doors after this weekend and won't open again until next year after a renovation that will help its workers.

www.wmur.com

There are other hospitality businesses with similar plans for housing locally.

It's not just hospitality businesses, but healthcare too. Both UVM health and Dartmouth Hitchcock are investing massively in staff housing.

I ask, what are the root causes of unaffordable housing? Is it natural free-markets? Government meddling?

Have to ask how these businesses can afford to build housing- it's not $100-$200 s/f anymore. It must be passed on to customers. If not profitable, they can't continue to operate.

In general, out of whack pricing needs a reset. Thats always painful. Seems its happening to city office space. WSJ says 18% vacancy rate - I say its much worse.

That figure ( if I'm not mistaken) is 'paid for leased space'. Once leases are up, companies are taking quite a bit less space.

That right there can help solve ( urban) housing. Expensive revo, but when you release hundreds of thousands of 800-1500 ss/f units to the market in cities like Beantown, it has to lower the entry price, right?

Rural is a different story - land has to become less expensive, as does building materials and labor - see none of that in the near future.

Look at these prices: https://www.mrvre.com/listings/land

 

[gladerider]

the root cause of unaffordable housing doesn't come down to just one factor. there are many causes. if you look at SF metro, i would say income disparity is a big one. tech companies drove up the salary level while most of the other industries didn't see much increase.
another big factor is probably financial firms getting into renting business which creates a visious cycle.
if you talk to someone from Vancouver, Sydney, etc. i bet you will hear chinese investors or rich person buying up their homes so there is also foreign money factor as well.

it is a complex problem. no easy answer.

 

[BenedictGomez]

I ask, what are the root causes of unaffordable housing? Is it natural free-markets? Government meddling?

After the housing bubble, builders were loathe to take on additional risk, certainly excessive spec risk, so they underbuilt for years. Then we had years of ZIRP Fed policy which led to "housing hoarding", plus the invention of ABNB, VRBO etc... whereby we now have many thousands of additional units sitting vacant as STR instead of ownership, and lastly, investor buying of homes increased over historical norms. Then during COVID, everyone who could buy a second (or third) home did so for "more space", with favorable near ZIRP terms. And many sitting on near ZIRP mortgagees who DO move just rent their SFH instead of selling it given their interest rate is so low! All of this combined has led to unprecedented home shortage.

That shortage led to massive home price appreciation. Many people dont realize this (yet), but homes are actually more unaffordable now than they were right before the great housing bubble of circa 2006-2007. We just had the largest home price appreciation in ~100 years of tracking home prices, about 42% nationally, and our incomes are NOT rising at the same rate. Now add the fact that mortgage rates this week hit the highest level in 22 years (mid-2001), and you have a recipe for a very unaffordable, potential very financially dangerous, housing market. Robert Shiller invented the Case-Shiller home price index, and he's worried. Caveat emptor as they say.

 

[2Planker]

Nothing beats the view from Conway

 

[kbroderick]

I ask, what are the root causes of unaffordable housing? Is it natural free-markets? Government meddling?

Have to ask how these businesses can afford to build housing- it's not $100-$200 s/f anymore. It must be passed on to customers. If not profitable, they can't continue to operate.

In a lot of mountain towns, the biggest issue (IMO) with affordable housing is locals with local wages trying to compete with out-of-town folks with out-of-town wages. That's been true for a long time, but it's become more true recently. Remote work and Amazon fulfillment, among other factors, have reduced the downsides to living in a mountain town. If what people can pay for housing is inherently limited by their wages, you have a more functional local RE market versus when RE costs are being driven by out-of-market economics.

On the second point, the restaurant group I worked for in Montana owned several apartments even back in 2014 and I think has kept adding space since. They aren't giving it away—employees still pay rent—so there is some overhead cost but it's not a straight expense. I think that's usually the model, with some variability on how much the rental side has to support itself depending on business needs and local conditions. It's not a panacea for housing shortages, as it creates some secondary issues (among them being that if you leave your job, you may loose your housing) and forces the hospitality businesses into the long-term rental business, which comes with its own headaches.

 

[IceEidolon]

Another factor is density. Look at old company housing or pre WW2 small town downtown housing, compare the space you need per bed or per unit for an old fashioned townhome or a little 600-800 square ft starter home, compared to modern minimum lot sizes and square footage requirements for standalone units. If a business wants to build housing for employees to rent, they might get 4x as many units on the same area, while still building houses (instead of an apartment block) by going with attached construction. And in a ski town where there's only so much flat to build on...

Same deal if a resort wants to put up something for more senior employees - junior managers, skilled tradespeople, etc. The building trends and zoning from the flatlands may need a second look when we're talking about mountain towns.

 

[Edd]

Zoning all over the country will need reevaluation if affordable housing ever moves forward.

 

[BenedictGomez]

There's also too many friggin' people in this country, which nobody ever talks about.

The census in 1980 was ~225M people.
The census in 2020 was ~333M people.

There are about 50% more people in America than there were just a mere 40 years ago. Tough to build your way out of massive population growth.

 

[raisingarizona]

There's also too many friggin' people in this country, which nobody ever talks about.

The census in 1980 was ~225M people.
The census in 2020 was ~333M people.

There are about 50% more people in America than there were just a mere 40 years ago. Tough to build your way out of massive population growth.

You’d think that with the climate crisis and population explosion over the last handful of years people would embrace the pandemic more.

 

[RichT]

There's also too many friggin' people in this country, which nobody ever talks about.

The census in 1980 was ~225M people.
The census in 2020 was ~333M people.

There are about 50% more people in America than there were just a mere 40 years ago. Tough to build your way out of massive population growth.

A lot of them coming over the border................

 

[KustyTheKlown]

I ask, what are the root causes of unaffordable housing? Is it natural free-markets? Government meddling?

Have to ask how these businesses can afford to build housing- it's not $100-$200 s/f anymore. It must be passed on to customers. If not profitable, they can't continue to operate.

In general, out of whack pricing needs a reset. Thats always painful. Seems its happening to city office space. WSJ says 18% vacancy rate - I say its much worse.

That figure ( if I'm not mistaken) is 'paid for leased space'. Once leases are up, companies are taking quite a bit less space.

That right there can help solve ( urban) housing. Expensive revo, but when you release hundreds of thousands of 800-1500 ss/f units to the market in cities like Beantown, it has to lower the entry price, right?

Rural is a different story - land has to become less expensive, as does building materials and labor - see none of that in the near future.

Look at these prices: https://www.mrvre.com/listings/land

apparently my company has our commercial landlord over a barrel and we're renegotiating a lease break into a smaller space in the building at a much lower $/sq.ft

also nyc has some ambitious office space to residential conversion plans, tho i am not sure where it is at in the procedural gobbledeegook

here is the official spin - https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-m...sal-convert-vacant-offices-housing-through#/0

"The Adams administration is also launching an Office Conversion Accelerator to expedite complex office-to-housing conversion projects — speeding up the process of creating new housing while putting millions of square feet of empty offices to better use for New Yorkers. Finally, the Adams administration today kicked off the “Midtown South Neighborhood Plan,” a community planning process that will update zoning rules that currently allow only manufacturing and office space to foster a vibrant, 24/7 live-work community with new homes and good job opportunities."