17 May Real Estate Frenzy Changing Culture of Colorado’s Mountain Towns!
In the near-term, everything is coming up roses – at least for brokers and those with properties to sell, (now as rare as hen’s teeth). But in the long-term, if people are buying the dream – Shangri-Las like Telluride – the downside is in the rearview mirror. For a reality check, we suggest reading this in-depth article by Jason Blevins of the Colorado Sun. The headline is sobering enough: “Record-breaking real estate frenzy is changing the culture of Colorado’s mountain towns as locals are priced out. ” Subhead: “More than $15 billion in property sales in 2020 in seven resort communities marks a 61% increase over 2019. Historic sales volume and sky-high prices are pushing locals out of mountain towns.”
Check out posts about the Trust for Community Housing here. TCH is one of the leading nonprofits working with the Town of Telluride to address the all-caps issue of affordable housing. Its executive director, Amy Levek, is quoted in Blevins’ story.
Note to our friends and neighbors: The narrative leads with Telluride.
Image of Telluride by artist Molly Perrault.
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 house, which this spring sold — sight unseen — for $2.2 million. And they moved again as that owner began renovations.
They found a rental home in Rico, about 30 minutes away. And, yes, that house just sold. Now they are looking again for a place to rent.
“I feel like Telluride is becoming a community where locals are not welcome but the people who are there six weeks a year, they are welcomed,” Anthony said. “What happens when the only people in these ski towns are here for a month or so a year?”
When Anthony and Montague were living in a long-term rental home on the east side of Telluride last fall, they watched four long-term rental homes sell and get ripped down to studs as new owners renovated. The renters in those homes, some of whom lived in Telluride for decades, left town, they said.
“The culture is definitely changing in Telluride,” Anthony said. “I wonder if these new owners know the dramatic effect they are having.”
It’s not just Telluride. Across Colorado’s resort communities, a real estate frenzy is breaking records and transforming cultural landscapes. The record-setting pace of sales over the past year has turbo-charged a trend that has unfolded in recent years with more urban refugees relocating to mountain towns. This resort-home mania has happened before — and it didn’t end well…
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