Perk for Park City Second-Home Skiers

Maybe you own own a vacation home, condo or timeshare in Park City, Utah. If so, maybe you're so wealthy you don't care about freebies. But thanks to a promotion offered by the town's three ski resorts, you can convert your airline boarding pass into a same-day lift ticket to The Canyons, Park City Mountain Resort or Deer Valley Resort. You must bring the completed, required redemption voucher, along with same-day boarding pass and out of state photo I.D., to the resort ticket window. Since an adult ticket will cost $77 at Deer Valley (the others have not yet announced daily ticket prices) that's a perk that should not be ignored.

Another 9-Figure Sale Price

First there was Prince Bandar's house in Aspen for $135-million. Then there was Donald Trump's little getaway in Palm Beach for $125-million. Now comes word of a third unbelievably pricey "vacation" home for sale -- Tommy Hilfiger's "Tranquility" on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, on the market for $100-million. A publicist for the broker, Shari Chase of Chase International, says the amenities include a cigar lounge (that's a first for me -- anyone ever hear of a cigar lounge in a private house?) and 210 "secluded" acres. The estate's main residence is 20,000 square feet. Want a peek? Call Shari at 775 588-6130.

Bias in Second Home Sales?

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a disturbing article about minority second-home buyers who were either blackballed or otherwise discriminated against when they tried to buy a vacation home. Where? In "Palm Beach County, Fla., there were 144 race-based housing complaints made to the local chapter of the nonprofit National Fair Housing Alliance in 2005, a 30 percent increase over the previous year, with many of them being filed by first-time second-home buyers. Bias claims are also up in Naples, Fla., and San Diego County, according to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development." The article included a tale of an African-American doctor who had a deal on a house in Sedona, AZ that was suddenly cancelled. Do you know of a bias case? Let me know.

Glut by the Seashore

A Maryland man has not only dropped the price for his weekend condo but has added two WaveRunners and a pier into a package deal to anyone who will take the place off his hands. It's typical, says a Baltimore Sun article, of what's happening in Western Maryland resort areas -- a glut of condos and townhouses flooding the market.


At Ocean City and at Western Maryland's Deep Creek Lake, "the market is cooling as inventory has climbed and properties sit on the market longer. Nationally, the market for condos slowed significantly during the first half of the year, with more for sale now than at any time since the early 1990s, according to statistics from Moody's Economy.com."

High Winds Blow NYC, DC No Good, Sez Expert

Thinking about buying a pied-a-terre in New York City or Washington, DC? Or a second home in Naples, Fla.? Keep your checkbook in your pocket, says real estate consultant John Burns. His "barometer" of housing affordability blows these cities off the charts in terms of bubbledom. "Nine markets have even worse affordability levels than when mortgage rates were 18%+ in the early 1980s: New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland (Oregon), Baltimore, Edison (New Jersey), Nassau (Long Island, NY) and Naples," says Burns's latest newsletter.

A "Must-Have" For Second Home Rentals

Everybody in the tub! An expert in Hawaii rentals says the must-have amenity for a second home toget more rentals is a hot tub. That's the word via Inman News from Bill May, whose company owns and maintains more than 100 resort and rental properties in Hawaii and the mainland. "It's a four-season amenity.... It would probably pay for itself three times over in less than a year," Says May.