Saturday, March 10, 2007

Big week: Ragatz Fractional Conference + Mt Superior Club, Snowbird UT.

The 7th Ragatz conference…tension between the North Course [RCI] guys who were shut out as they used to own Ragatz, and open arms to Interval International, who used to be shut out as competitive to RCI. The guard changes.

That said; sell out crowd of over 500 attendees. Almost too big to work the crowd effectively. Lots of new faces - where do they all come from?

Big topic for me was all the mini developers who are planning to do homes, one -off to three to colonies of them. Must have been 15 I met or heard ask questions. Probably many more.

Unanswered: how to manage them and will buyers buy with so few interests and homes?

Also, some statements of, 'forget the intensive service' out buyers just want a second home. Interesting if that comes true with sales?

The Flags keep expanding. Ritz, Fairmont, St. Regis and Intrawest can't get product to market fast enough. They are real believers.

The role of the independent? Unlimited with superb location and smaller projects that the Flags can't afford to develop.

A semi surprise to me on Ragatz's survey results on price per square foot for 3 beds at $1,516 and 4 beds at $1,803. Does this include Little Nel in Aspen? Did not ask. But, kinda puts perspective to our $2000 per square at Mt. Superior Club at Snowbird at being 'so high'

Later in the week at Snowbird. We had a buyer come in a take 'one of each' comprised of a 3 bed, 4 bed both 8ths and a 1/4th 3 bed and ¼ 4 bed each at over $1,3 million. That's the kind of buyer we like!.

Back to Ragatz, good to see some ULI types there bridging the gap between the large mixed use developers and the single site fractional developers.

The business is hot out there!