Nancy Keats covers real estate, architecture, and design for this magazine.
Her Oct. 10 article, “Park City home prices have exploded, and these towns are benefiting,” explores the ripple effects of Park City’s rising cost of living.
Keats said Park City’s overcrowding and soaring prices are increasingly turning away homebuyers.
“Not only are these individual homeowners buying land in Heber, Midway and Camas, but these developments are also happening,” Keats said. “I think these huge, gated, luxury golf developments are having a huge impact on the area.”
Keats said with the opening of Deer Valley East Village, buyers don’t feel they need to be in Park City to be close to the ski area.
“Everyone I talked to who recently bought there mentioned the East Village and its expansion and how quickly it would get them to the slopes,” she said.
Growing interest is driving up prices. Single-family homes in Heber Valley are selling for a median price of about $980,000 this year, more than double the price before the coronavirus pandemic.
Keats said he expects the Wasatchback housing market to continue to be a hot commodity. He also said the acceleration of U.S. wealth is not slowing.
“People own multiple homes. I’m not just talking about one vacation home; it’s more like three or four homes. Because we see it as an essential element for diversification,” Keats said. So why not own a property in a beautiful, outdoor-friendly location?”
Mr Keats said the amount of development was keeping people away. On a recent reporting trip to an Idaho mountain town west of the Teton Mountains, she spoke to a group of expatriates in Park City.
“The skiers and climbers I met when I was at Driggs and Victor were complaining about Park City, and now they’re complaining about what’s going on in Idaho,” she said. “That will continue as we continue to develop as a country…There are fewer and fewer remote places and more and more places that people own.”
