Steamboat Real Estate

Steamboat Springs has seen an unprecedented development boom in the last year. Before the credit crunch started, there were at least 25 developments in the planning stages that would have added hundreds of new housing units to Steamboat Springs.

Since credit became harder to get in August, 2007, developments continue to be finished. Downtown has Howelson Place, the Victorian, the Olympian, and Alpenglow. Those buildings continue to go up.

On the mountain, Trailhead Lodge in Wildhorse Meadows, the Highmark, and Trappeurs Crossing are completed or currently being built.

Locals and visitors are both looking around and asking, “Who is going to buy all this stuff??”

Steamboat doesn’t have the same condo overbuilding problems that other areas of the country have. One reason is that Steamboat had very little new construction over the past five years when the rest of the country was overbuilding. So the new developments aren’t being added to an already saturated market of vacant, brand-new inventory.

One Steamboat Place and Trailhead Lodge will be the first new developments in years. That’s a big difference compared to Miami or Las Vegas, where housing prices are plummeting, foreclosures are rising, and vacant developments continue to sit unsold.

Once projects have started, they are hard to stop. Developers have enough of their own money in the deal and they have their financing in hand, so they want to see the project to completion. Over the 2-3 years it takes to complete, developers hope good times return and buyers line up at their sales office.

Some condos may be converted to rental units. Read here how The Highmark is one of them.

New projects are different. They are in the early stages and are easier to shelve if expected pre-sales do not materialize. Developments like RiverWalk have yet to break ground. If developments are cancelled, there will be another gap where Steamboat doesn’t have new places coming on the market.

That’s good news for the projects currently under construction.

There are a lot of quality developments rising all over Steamboat, but buyers are being cautious. We’ll see how it all plays out over the next few years.