I'm thinking about buying a condo in a ski area with the idea of spending summer months in the mountains and renting it out during ski season. Question is what areas to consider? I've been to Breckenridge and Park City in the summer and really enjoyed both locations. Co-worker suggested Big Sky country in Montana. Any opinions or suggestions on other areas welcomed.

I realize that more popular areas like Breck will be more expensive to buy, but will probably also be more in demand to rent. I have zero desire to stay in the winter, grew up in Canada and have had my fill of below zero weather.

And before you say "don't get into the rental game", we are already experienced players. We own a beach-front condo in Florida and spend a few weeks there per year vacationing, rent it out when we aren't using it, and that's worked very well for us over the past 3 years. Looking at retiring in a few years, plan would be to move permanently to the beach place and stay there from Labor Day thru Memorial day, then bugger off to the mountains for the summer to enjoy a change of scenery and avoid the busy tourist beach season.

Thanks in advance for all responses.

What activities do you enjoy doing in the summer?

I bought in Breck last year, and I'm loving it. I've stayed maybe 10 nights but plan to stay more in the Summer. I haven't done a whole lot in Breck outside of skiing, but I'll be playing a lot of golf, hiking, etc. this summer.

I'm the opposite if you in that I might buy a beach place in the coming years. I saw a House Channel show where a couple bought a pretty nice 1BR on the beach in Panama City Beach for 155k. I'd maybe go for 8-10 nights/year, but I think the numbers would be easy to work (they were saying $230-270/night average rental). Any advice?

And I'd highly recommend staying in the mountains until at least October. Fall in Breck is great. I bet it's pretty damn hot in FL in Sept/Oct.

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and avoid the busy tourist beach season

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Depending on your location, the mountains are just as busy during the summer...especially Breckenridge. Memorial Day to Labor is jam packed with people escaping the heat.

I'm biased because I live full time in the Vail Valley. I agree with the others and bet you may end up staying past Labor Day. One thing to consider is the rental market between Mid April when ski season ends and Memorial Day and then Labor Day to Thanksgiving.

If it were me and in the budget I would go in Avon where Beaver Creek is. You have Vail 10 minutes away to the East then Eagle/ Glenwood Springs to the West. Breck and Aspen would be about 1.5 hours or less away.

I live in Eagle and for summer activities we have a ton of trailheads in my neighborhood for hiking, mountain biking and 4x4 (plus a gold course). There's also a brewery and other watering holes withint walking distance. I don't think where I am is what you are looking for but I will say a lot of the houses have lock off apartments. Our house did and the tenant was an old guy that lived in Boulder that came up a few weekends a year and paid $1375 / month. One outside the box thought is you pick up one of those houses and you live in the lock off when you are here and rent the main house until you come more full time and then reverse it.

Good luck!

Big Sky, while beautiful, doesn't really have a "summer season", unless you are willing to drive for it. There is not a ton of real estate in Big Sky, it's not even considered a town.

Thanks for all of the responses, please keep them coming...

Fair -- sounds lame, but activity-wise would mostly be walking (not hiking, at least not in any challenging way). We're primarily looking to get away from heat, get some nice mountain views while drinking our beers on the balcony, and maybe be close enough to walk to a small downtown to do eating/shopping etc. Don't forget I mentioned "retirement" so we're getting close to being "olds". I realize we can get mountain views in a lot of places, part of the "location, location, location" aspects would be winter skiing rental prospects (demand).

Sooner -- I recognize mountain locations can be busy tourist spots in the summer, but in my mind we'd be one of those tourists since we'd be part-timers. That's different than having your full time "home" at the beach being invaded by the summer hoards and having to deal with that. I guess it's a state of mind more than anything -- when we first bought our beach condo we felt like tourists so didn't mind the busy season. Having owned a few years now and also stayed a lot more outside of the busy season, we're getting a little more "snobby" about having to deal with the masses in summer.

Proud -- glad Breck is working out for you, that's probably tops on my wish list right now but cost will be a consideration. With respect to your request for advice -- yes, I think there would be plenty of options for a condo on the Emerald coast at not too steep an entry price. I personally would avoid Panama City or Destin as being too built up and overcrowded for my liking. Our condo is in Ft Walton Beach, about 5 miles west of Destin and about 50 miles west of Panama City Beach. Same stretch of beach and water, just not as built up. FWB is on the flight path for Eglin AFB so limited in height to 6 story buildings. That means a lower tourist density on the beach than Destin or PCB because no high-rises. Also not as built up commercially, a lot quieter and more family friendly. But only 10 min from Destin if we want go-kart track, water park, outlet malls or whatever. Hwy 98 in Destin in the summer can be a parking lot.

In terms of rental costs, here's a link to our condo (if I can get the thing working right), it's a 2 BR that sleeps up to 10, but if you check around on the Southern Resorts site you'll see other 1 BRs in our building or others for an idea of rental prices. You can go to the Okaloosa County property appraisal website and search on any condo to find recent sales prices, or just google "emerald coast condos for sale" or something similar to see what current asking prices are. Good luck!

http://www.southernresorts.com/bre/properties/Gulf-Dunes-503/

OP. What is your budget? If you don't really have one, you might look at Telluride. I spent a summer week there and loved it. It's harder to get to but if you're staying all summer that might not matter.

We have family that owns in Keystone and really like it. Plenty of other mountains close by.

I bought a place in park city. Can't beat flying into slc and only being 25min to pc.

Also, during the summer, there are hundreds of miles of trails, fly fishing, and festivals about every weekend. There is a farmers market on main st every weekend as well. It's great.

I'm sure most of these resort towns offer the same, but none are as close to major airport.

Real estate prices are expected to shoot up also as vail has purchased park city ski resort and will connect it to canyons this summer. Deer valley also has summer concert series every week.

Sundance rental is huge also. Can rent your place one week and pay your mortgage for the year.

JRizzle -- glad Park City is working out for you, at a glance it seems slightly more affordable than Breck. Hadn't thought about Sundance bringing in additional demand, worth pondering over. I know I've seen on ski forums that folks like the fact that it's so close to a major airport AND lower elevation -- I've never had to deal with altitude sickness but sounds like Breck has a higher chance of that happening.

Proud -- saw your VRBO link on another post, looks like you've got a good place staked out. We'd probably be looking for something a bit bigger size-wise, our beach condo is about 1200 sq ft and is plenty big enough, we will probably look for something smaller in the mountains but not sure I could go all the way down to loft size.

Thanks to all for your responses...

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probably be looking for something a bit bigger size-wise

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Not the first time Proud has heard that.

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probably be looking for something a bit bigger size-wise

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Not the first time Proud has heard that.

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Proud -- saw your VRBO link on another post, looks like you've got a good place staked out. We'd probably be looking for something a bit bigger size-wise, our beach condo is about 1200 sq ft and is plenty big enough, we will probably look for something smaller in the mountains but not sure I could go all the way down to loft size.

Thanks to all for your responses...

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Thanks! Your place looks great. I wouldn't want to live in my condo full-time, but I love for a few nights at a time. What kind of location are you looking for? My guess is that it'd be hard to find a 1,000 sf place in a comparable location to mine in Breck for under 400k. You could get more sf for the money if you looked away from Main St, near the golf course, up the mountain, or outside of town. As an FYI, financing was tough in Breck b/c the majority of condos are classified as "condotels".... even if they technically aren't. I had to put down a minimum of 25% (even w/ perfect credit).

Upon reading this thread, I've looked into Panama City Beach and Park City. Both look pretty affordable. I'm now interested in looking into both spots within the next 2-3 years.

What's your end goal? Money or just have someone pay for a vacation place. I find the mountain town market to be pretty hard. I own a place in Tahoe and Jackson Hole and if it's purely a financial decision you can take a beating. Try owning a place in Squaw the past two years to see what a beating looks like. Beaches don't give away condos to attract tourist when they have a low sand year.

Easiest Markets to rent in Park City, Breck, Taos and Vail.
Best Mountain Towns to Live: Jackson, Telluride, Crested Butte, Ketchum
Biggest potential upside on real estate values: Driggs Id, Big Sky

Stay out of California

Mtn_Guide,

what is your take on Aspen? good market to rent?

I'm pretty tied there because my grandfather moved there and bought a hotel after WWII. Sold out before Aspen got really big.
Aspen proper or the greater area? Aspen itself is a great VRBO market and has the highest end clientele. You can name your price when it comes to rentals. Down side is the cost to play the game. Seems like you can't get in for less than $800,000 most of the time. And if you are going to lease you want at least a 2 bed. Last I checked (which was a while ago) the median home price was just under $2M.
If you have the money it's a great long term investment. There is no land left in Aspen and the town is pretty adament about limiting upward growth. Also the clientele is becoming more and more international.

The other downside is what you get for the dollar. In Aspen $600K gets you a 1-bd Studio. That same money in Ketchum or Vail gets you a 3 bd which is easier to rent and resale. Some ski towns like McCall you get a 5 bedroom on 2 acres. Hell my 3 bedroom house in Jackson is less than that.

OP - if you can get your hands on one in Jackson hole the best investment I have found is the AR Zoning. I can't afford one but a bunch of the older houses allow up to 3 units on the lot. A couple people I know have converted the homes to duplexes for long term renters. These actually generate a pretty good profit because there is a large rental shortage for workers. They then put in a mother-in-law in the back for their private vacation condo. Both couples are holding it for either their retirement homes or they will sell after 20 years and upgrade.

Thanks again to everyone for their thoughts.

Mtn -- in terms of what I'm looking for is basically subsidizing (to some extent) a vacation place. That's exactly what we're doing now with our Florida condo, using it a few weeks a year and renting it out when we're not there. Definitely not a money-maker, but the net rentals are covering 60% of our annual costs, which is better than 0%. If all goes to plan we pay the mortgage off next year and then it should start to turn a small profit -- but that was never the goal, the condo purchase was always with the intent of retiring there full-time in a few years. If we can get into a mountain place where rentals during ski season can cover half our costs, I'd be happy with that. I was originally hoping to do something in the $400k range but should have some flexibility. We'll probably be selling our primary residence in the Sugar Land area in about the same time frame when we get serious about buying, so can use much/most of that equity to help move to a higher price range if needed.

Proud -- yep, we faced the whole condotel thing too, but in what was a VERY toxic Florida real estate market at the time, lots of foreclosures and short sales being listed on vacation properties. Nobody would look at us without going 30% down, and even then we had to pay about 1.5% above market APR at the time because of the perceived risk. My credit union that I'd been a member for >20 years wouldn't even consider financing any property in FL at the time. But here's how bad it was -- a 2 br unit that we'd rented for a week in the summer of 2011 when we finally made the decision to buy was being listed as a short-sale for $220k. It had been purchased in 2005 for $630k. It's no wonder lenders were nervous at the time.

If you are just planning on that then I might suggest taking a road trip. All the places that were mentioned are great but you need a place you can click with. Sounds like at your price range Aspen is out of reach but most of the others would be good.

Sorry one last thing and I will let it die. One of my clients mentioned at dinner last night that he bought his place in Incline Village on Lake Tahoe just from the tax savings of "living" outside of California. If you only want it for a summer place that actually might be a great option. With the drought the skiing hasn't been great so the real estate market has been kept in check compared to other ski towns.

I almost took a banking job in Aspen about 10 years ago, but I turned it down when I saw the real estate prices. For anything that wasn't a total dump, the starting price was $1,500-$2,000/sf. I can't imagine what it is now.

BOM, Aspen still hasn't made it back to where it was in '05. But it's knocking on the door.

We're going to be looking to sell our place in Avon, CO here within the next year or so. 2bd/bath and in your price range, should short term out well given it's right next to the bus stop and in the middle of town.