Getting your player ready...
If you had been on the slopes for Ski Granby Ranch’s season opener last Wednesday, you would have found the best early snow conditions in recent years (nine runs up-and-running), along with four new ski-in ski-out condos for sale fifty yards from the lifts. Those final four units at Granby Ranch’s Base Camp One – a 1-bedroom at $159,900 and some luxurious two-bedrooms from $257,500 – are likely to be the last new homes that will ever be offered this close to the base and the lodge.
And those prices are about half of what the same units’ were priced when Base Camp One was launched in 2009. “That’s a great value,” says broker Dale Schossow of Fuller Sotheby’s International, a veteran of resort sales over in Vail and Breckenridge as well as at Granby Ranch. Schossow and other brokers are seeing a sharp increase in sales at numbers of Colorado resorts, suggesting the warm feeling buyers have about the Denver market now is starting to reach into the mountains. But sales at Granby Ranch – 83 this year over 56 sold in 2012 – are catching particular attention, including a surprising number this fall – months when the mountain market is usually dead. Granby Ranch, 20 minutes beyond Winter Park, is almost exactly the same distance from Denver as Vail and Breckenridge (my trip up from downtown on opening day was exactly 90 minutes, even with some snow-packed roads). Meanwhile, Schossow says Base Camp One’s final units stand out for more than price. After the family-friendly ski mountain closes this spring, Granby Ranch’s year-round amenities draw kids and grandkids back for hiking that’s as good or better than what Summit County resorts offer; along with on-site fishing in the river, mountain biking, an 18-hole golf course, and an owners’ club with three-season pool and hot tub. Base Camp One residents get all of that included in Granby Ranch’s association dues, along with a setting where they can relax on their decks and watch the kids on the slopes; or walk over to Granby Ranch Grill for dinner and drinks. Developer Greg Finch of Dundee Resort Development notes that Base Camp One’s other 60 condos were sold during very tough conditions in the mountain market; yet Base Camp One has seen only one foreclosure and three resales during that span – two by families who were buying up to larger Base Camp One units. “It’s not every day that you obtain that kind of buyer satisfaction with a resort property,” he adds. And those families use Base Camp One to the max, Finch says: “We can tell how much by the cars in the parking garage, and by how often we have to restock the woodpile for the firepit,” he adds. “Once these units are sold, there’s nowhere for prices to go but up.” “What I like about Granby Ranch is that it’s unpretentious and it’s a one-stop – ski, golf, fish, hike and bike,” adds Schossow. “You can’t do that from your door in any other place.” When you drive up tomorrow for Granby Ranch’s opening weekend (or over the holidays for its kids-oriented ‘Winter Wonderland’ on the slopes) you’ll see another advantage over those Summit County resorts: Granby Ranch doesn’t require a trip through the crowded Eisenhower Tunnel. To visit Base Camp One – possibly your last chance to buy new ski-in/out residences at these prices anywhere in Colorado – from I-70 take U.S. 40 west, 15 miles past Winter Park to Village Road (before the light) and turn right 2 miles to Granby Ranch Real Estate Center.Follow Mark Samuelson on Twitter:
@marksamuelson
