Holiday gift? How 'bout a Colorado ski house?

The air may be cold in the Colorado mountains, but the second -home market is hotter than ever.

If local real estate company statistics are correct, more real estate at higher prices changed hands in the first nine months of 2004 than happened throughout 2003. "Through the third quarter, buyers paid $4.74 billion for real estate in eight mountain counties, slightly more than the $4.62 billion paid in 2003. And 2003 was the second-best year on record. This year's sales likely will best the all-time high of the stock market boom of 2000, when an estimated $5.1 billion in real estate sold," says the Rocky Mountain News, the Denver daily.

Buy now or wait? Purchase your mountain dream house or condo now because there's not a whole lot of quality left in inventory, according to local reports in Eagle County, home of Vail and Beaver Creek. "Leading the pricing increase is Vail Village, where the average price per-sale has jumped 65 percent to $672,000.... In Beaver Creek the average price has jumped 52 percent to $536,000...." a local realtor is quoted as telling the Vail Daily.