Prices fall with the snow at Winter Park and Fraser Valley: the mountain towns are bouncing back from the bottom but still sport bargains for resort properties.

AuthorLewis, David
Position[who owns] COLORADO

Something about the lofty Fraser Valley brings out the best in municipal ballyhoo. The town of Fraser long and justly has been known as the Icebox of the Nation, no matter what some town in Minnesota claims.

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As this is written it is 25 degrees Fahrenheit in Fraser, not so very cold, with temperatures stuck right around freezing. But heavy snows are coming on top of the 147 inches that have already fallen.

That's 3.7 meters of snow, 12 feet, which brings us to a couple of Fraser's neighbors, Winter Park Resort and the town of Winter Park. Winter Park, population 662, at an altitude of 9,040 feet, in 2006 annexed the resort, whose mountain reaches 12,060 feet.

This allowed Winter Park to lay claim to the title of Highest Incorporated Town in the United States. This title is disputed by Alma, Colo., which notes that nobody in Winter Park actually lives up that high.

The Fraser Valley always has been a little different. Even for Colorado its location at the end of Berthoud Pass is amazing, yet the area continues to have an air of being undiscovered and underdeveloped.

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The resort has a unique history that has had an ongoing impact. Skiing there began in the 1920s. In the late 1930s it was named Winter Park, and the first tow-bar was installed. The city and county of Denver owned and operated the resort until 2002 when it signed a long-term management agreement with Vancouver, B.C.-based Intrawest. That company, which also manages Steamboat Ski & Resort, currently pays Denver $2 million annually to run Winter Park Resort.

The resort's 2006 annexation not only gave Winter Park its claim to the town-altitude crown, it gave Denver, Winter Park and Intrawest the means to open a new chapter in planning and development.

Which they have opened. In town, development and the secondary real estate market now take place against the backdrop of the Great Recession.

Not that the resort has escaped the slump, but it seems to have rehabbed the mountain and its base while for the most part avoiding overbuilding, i.e., underselling.

Winter Park Resort completed the Village at Winter Park 18 months ago, which might seem like ill timing.

Prices have fallen at the resort. "Back in the day, in 2006 and 2007, we were selling a two-bedroom on average for about $550,000, and now that is down to about $400,000," says Gretchen Brunke, sales manager for Playground Destination Properties Inc., the resort's real estate arm.

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