ASPEN TO TELLURIDE, REAL ESTATE JUNKIES

Birdman heard thousands of conversations in Aspen and Telluride during the 70′s through 2007 about the biggest addiction in ski town USA history, real estate investment and credit addiction.  This was the crack cocaine of the ski towns, leverage, credit, buying homes and land to make huge gains in the appreciation of the product.  The phenomenon involved the rich as well as soon to be rich, regular workers, real estate agents, and workers in the restaurants.  Starwood lots in Aspen were $22,000 per lot in 1971, and went to $3 million and now reduced to $2 million.  Between 1972 and 2006, lots in the ski town of Telluride went from $7000 per lot to $1 million per lot, a 141 times increase.   Some years they doubled in value, and some years went up 20% to 30%.  They were the drug of choice.  There was nothing more powerful in the valley than this money game, not even the avalanches that occasionally rumbled off the mountains, in full view of downtown Telluride.  Cocaine dealers who were loaded with hubris lost all their money, buying real estate as fast as they could, feeling invincible to the downside.  It was a monstrously powerful addiction, with no RESG (Real Estate Support Group) to counsel its victims.  The rich and famous got involved as well, dozens of movie stars bought into Aspen and Telluride.  Captains of industry, a who is who of CEO’s bought into the frenzy.  Birdman bought a home in 1973 with nothing down for $25,000 in a prime upscale neighborhood, and sold it years later for $975,000.  His neighbors included the great-granddaughter of Jay Gould, the Wall street tycoon who invented the stock certificate printing press at the turn of the century.  The Walt Disney grandchildren bought a home on 4 lots across the creek from Birdman.  Keith Carradine bought a house across the creek from Bill Graham the promoter for the Grateful Dead, who was later killed in a helicopter accident in Vallejo California returning from a Huey Lewis and the News concert.  Birdmans house had a temporary foundation, concrete, railroad ties, and mining beams, it was remodeled twice, and sold for cash in two weeks, to a Wall street investment banker family.  The powerful addiction was part of almost every conversation in the saloons, on the streets, it rolled through the culture like a religion that was a major part of the ski towns legend.  Mark Twain would have moved to Telluride, looking for a real estate agent.  Rich folk roamed the main street of downtown Telluride, looking for the best agent, that would make them richer.  No matter how or where the conversation started, it ended up with, “did you hear about the agent who bought 3 lots in town for $40,000 each and sold them for $100,000 each 2 years later.” One builder in Telluride owned 20 prime residential lots on the sunny side of town, said he thought they generated no interest in the early 80′s, and sold them for $50,000 each.  Later on they went to $800,000 to $1 million per lot.  One real estate broker owned a home below Red Mountain in Aspen, sold it for $370,000, and moved to Telluride and opened a real estate office.  The house a year later sold for over $1.4 million.  He was addicted to cocaine and addicted to real estate and money, and the question is, which was the most powerful.  The banks, and old miners handed out loans like free hotdogs at a 4th of July barbecue, and national banks sent letters by the week offering equity loans to any owner with a heartbeat.  The ultimate solution to the lust for real estate, which ended the party, was the meltdown on Wall street, when real estate sales dropped to zero and commissions disintegrated, and land and home values collapsed in Aspen and Telluride 30% to 60% in value.  Now the locals are going through withdrawal and the endless category 5 hurricane, from the bank meltdown and recession of the century, never seems to end.  A new culture, a new value system is emerging in Aspen and Telluride; friends and family, children, grandkids,  mother nature, outdoor adventure are looming as a real value, for those who are survivors and can afford to stay in the ski towns.  The golden years of real estate booms, 1970-2007, is gone, the big easy money is over, sayonara.  Junkies are leaving town,  searching for a new Big Thing.  Maybe it is gold panning, and actually skiing.