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How to Save a Ski Town

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Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#41

Post by danielheath »

SwagGrocery wrote: post #39

There are a lot of comments about eliminating investment properties and providing subsidized housing. Why don't we let the market work itself out? Let's see how magical Crested Butte is in a few years with no intervention. I suspect you'll be able to get a nice ski-in/ski-out condo at a significant discount when there are no longer any businesses open in the town.

Did 'the market' build the roads, sewerage and power grids that made it viable to have a township there, or did the government decide they should exist and fund them directly?

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#42

Post by 9935c101ab17a66 »

jseliger wrote: post #4

No mention of "demand" and only one of "supply:" "The limited supply of affordable housing for workers has been a challenge for decades." Prices occur where demand and supply intersect. There are two ways to lower them: lower demand or raise supply. Supply restrictions raise prices. There are a lot of words here that fail to deal with price fundamentals.

This obviously isn't true. You can absolutely use legislation and fiscal policy to impact market prices. You're being incredibly reductionist and I'm not quite sure why, but if you read the article, you would have come across the case of Whistler, where they've effectively used policy to improve the availability of affordable housing.

Also, we're not talking about a commodity like smart fridges or something, we're talking about one of the fundamental human needs — shelter. Your frivolity is unnecessarily callous.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#43

Post by xrd »

SwagGrocery wrote: post #39

There are a lot of comments about eliminating investment properties and providing subsidized housing. Why don't we let the market work itself out? Let's see how magical Crested Butte is in a few years with no intervention. I suspect you'll be able to get a nice ski-in/ski-out condo at a significant discount when there are no longer any businesses open in the town.

Won't Amazon and Uber Eats step in to fill that gap? I sadly worry that technology will fill in the holes. When reading the article I was thinking to myself: "what if people who lived there could pool their collective cooking skills and offer up meals to their neighbors (letting their neighbors skip cooking, a need previously filled by local restaurants)."

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#44

Post by verve_rat »

bamboozled wrote: post #38
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #9

Honest question, have any of these ski towns tried allowing the construction of a significant amount of housing? I.e. housing growth that actually scales with the growth in demand? None of the ones I've visited seem at all dense. (Been to Vail, Beaver Creek, Park City, and all over Tahoe.) All the consternation over the housing crisis is maddening to me because it seems like universally (in the US), we're willing to…

If your read the article, they cover this topic. There's also a kind of preservation of the culture of the town. Which I kind of agree with. Then there is also the fact that a lot of these places aren't used for housing, they're used as play houses or AirBnB's. So just adding more houses will likely mean more empty stuff in the town, probably making the problem worse.

So make empty houses (and AirBnB's) illegal (aka super taxed out the wazzoo). The people that live in a place should be able to say what they do and do not want in their town.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#45

Post by xrd »

cletus wrote: post #11

The principle I've long held is that cities and towns should primarily be for those who reside in those towns. In this case, only residents should be voting on things like ballot measures. This article talks about a few towns, some where I'm sure there are a lot of residents with multiple homes, some of which I'm sure that isn't the case. But nonresident owners shouldn't be dictating public policy, period. So the fir…

I don't own a second home, for the record. I do think it would be difficult and have second order effects to ban AirBnB.

But, what about a tax on vacancies, rather than on revenue you get when renting it out? Incentivize people to keep their places filled?

I agree with the general sentiment that AirBnB has altered housing options for low income people for the worse. And, it seems inevitable.

Maybe we need to alter our perceptions of what housing is for people as well? Meaning, people need to start thinking of housing as temporary and governments can force people to open their vacancies to people in need of housing.

Perhaps a new law that makes it so empty vacant houses are available to house-less people? That would be interesting.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#46

Post by dustintrex »

bamboozled wrote: post #30

Same thing is happening in Asia. I know a few local towns, one in particular where some foreign guy now has his Japanese real estate license and access to a bunch of foreign investors looking for places. It's becoming an unmitigated disaster. The population of the town is somewhat severely aged; However, rather than that being an opportunity for young people to get a start, this property snake steps in an steals ever…

I don't think your view is representative of "Asia", or even Japan. Housing in Japan is by world standards extremely affordable and generally depreciates in value instead of appreciating, making it a terrible investment. If your town is "somewhat severely aged", that means the youth have already made the call to head for the cities and it's lack of jobs, not lack of affordable property, that's driving that. There are a couple of foreign-investor hotspot blips like newly trendy ski town Niseko, but for the vast majority of the country, prices are down, down, down. Many rural towns are now handing out essentially free houses because they've been abandoned (akiya), although the costs of renovating them into something livable are often considerable.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#47

Post by cletus »

xrd wrote: post #45
cletus wrote: post #11

The principle I've long held is that cities and towns should primarily be for those who reside in those towns. In this case, only residents should be voting on things like ballot measures. This article talks about a few towns, some where I'm sure there are a lot of residents with multiple homes, some of which I'm sure that isn't the case. But nonresident owners shouldn't be dictating public policy, period. So the fir…

I don't own a second home, for the record. I do think it would be difficult and have second order effects to ban AirBnB. But, what about a tax on vacancies, rather than on revenue you get when renting it out? Incentivize people to keep their places filled? I agree with the general sentiment that AirBnB has altered housing options for low income people for the worse. And, it seems inevitable. Maybe we need to alter ou…

This is what Vancouver has tried [1]. It doesn't seem to have worked.

The problem here is that it's too easy to game. You can put in a token resident. The same can apply to having income limits on houses. You have a low income resident who just happens to have rich friends who visit.

I think we need to attack the idea that rich people use real estate to park money and avoid taxes.

[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-08-16/taxing-th...

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#48

Post by umeshunni »

verve_rat wrote: post #44
bamboozled wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your read the article, they cover this topic. There's also a kind of preservation of the culture of the town. Which I kind of agree with. Then there is also the fact that a lot of these places aren't used for housing, they're used as play houses or AirBnB's. So just adding more houses will likely mean more empty stuff in the town, probably making the problem worse.

So make empty houses (and AirBnB's) illegal (aka super taxed out the wazzoo). The people that live in a place should be able to say what they do and do not want in their town.

The irony is that most of these towns depend entirely on tourists for theirs existence. Those tourist dollars depend on Airbnbs (no one is permitting new hotels in these towns).

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#49

Post by dustintrex »

mastax wrote: post #2

I imagine the Swiss have dealt with similar situations, I wonder what they would suggest? Pay employees way more is probably step one. I'm the "build more housing" guy, but it looks like the Swiss have chosen a different path?

Your typical Swiss ski resort village is stacked full of multilevel apartments, cleverly disguised as rustic chalets:

https://chalet.myswitzerland.com/holiday-rentals/grindelwald...

Superior public transport (quite a few villages ban cars entirely), much higher wages and ruthless exploitation of immigrant labor are also factors though.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#50

Post by boringg »

One of the biggest problems that is hitting ski towns is the hyper cheap season passes that everyone buys. The model has created a huge surge of demand for people to go skiing in winter which has put pressure on the local ski towns (more short term rental demands, second home buyers) and the resources at ski mountains (aka the insane lines on a good ski day now).

It's interesting because it has allowed a lot more people to get into skiing but the trade off has been that with more volume on the ski hills - more demand on the local real estate and more crowded infrastructure. Businesses have done well since they sold more but locals who are on a tighter budget have inflating home costs. Pandemic also made things get extra strange.

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