Summer Travel to Vail is bouncing back

You can always get an opinion on the economy from a Realtor, and this year we are starting to see a lot more smiles from our bretheren. Today the Vail Daily came out with an article that supports what the real estate community is starting to see: more customers. We have all been suffering with lack of interest in real estate sales for the past two years, and now the Daily has revealed that summer tourists are coming back. To me, that means more people looking at real estate than we have seen in a while.

Some of the backup to this assumption is coming from the Eagle Airport where reservations for July have increased by 11% from last summer, and there is already a 7% increase in August reservations. Interestingly enough is that the direct flight from Dallas is already 35% booked for the summer, and from Miami, seats are 45% booked. The Vail Valley Partnership thinks that this summer's events are showing some signs of across the board improvement. Typical of this is the Yo Yo Ma concert coming before the Fourth of July, and then there is the King of the Mountain Volleyball tourney and upcoming Bravo events starting over the Fourth.

Tony O'Rourke, CEO of Beaver Creek, says that the next step is loosen the purse strings so that people are willing to spend more than in the past two years. "Everyone is still looking for a deal on their lodging rates" he says. We in the real estate business see this as the next step before the housing market picks back up again. Here at Gateway Land, we have seen a very positive increase in phone calls and showings in the past several months. As the main part of the summer approaches, we expect to see more offers coming in for inventory which has to date been sitting around dormant. Please call us soon, as we anticipate the usual rise in prices as inventory is bought up. Call Judd Babcock on his cell at 970-376-3230 to get a picture of what the 'hot property list ' looks like this summer.