Ski Homes: The Next Big Thing in Luxury

Luxury ski homes have seen prices rise by nearly 6 percent over the last year, as they’re increasingly being courted by the wealthy’s top 1 percent.

Inside the Luxury Market:

• Luxury Sales Heat Up Across the Country
• 2 Things Luxury Buyers Want Most
• Keeping Up With the R&R Crowd
• Luxury Buyers Are Spending Mega Bucks in These Markets

Knight Frank’s annual Prime Ski Property Index, which tracks prices across 20 of the top resorts in the world, recorded a 5.9 percent uptick for the year ending in June. Overall, North America saw the biggest price jumps for luxury ski homes, which rose by 13.3 percent on average, while Europe’s ski homes’ saw a much more modest average growth of 1 percent in that period.

Broken out more, however, homes in New Zealand’s Queenstown were the price champs, reporting the largest price rises at 24.8 percent. In the U.S., Aspen, Colo., grabbed the second spot for largest price rises in the luxury ski home market, with homes seeing a 20.7 percent year-over-year increase.

Some millionaires are also showing more interest in renting rather than buying their luxury ski chalet.

"The rise of the 'super-chalet' as a rental option is a recent phenomenon," according to Knight Frank. "Some are 800 square meters or larger and located in unrivaled positions in the top resorts such as Courchevel [in France]." For example, rental properties with 14-week stays there have been shown to return a gross investment yield of 6.7 percent over the last year.

Source: “Why the 1% May Invest in Luxury Ski Homes,” CNBC (Oct. 9, 2014)