The Best Investment I’ve Made | Crested Butte Ski Condo
Have you ever had one of those strings of events that lead to a fantastic outcome you never would have gotten to without some randomness?
Our mountain condo in Crested Butte is one of those things. It’s the best financial investment I’ve ever made and the best lifestyle & happiness investment I’ve ever made too.
Financial Investment 2.43X in 4 Years
It’s crazy to look back from 2022 to the Crested Butte property values of 2017. Back then (and still a little today) CB was one of the lower-priced Colorado ski towns. I’m not sure exactly why, but suspect it has to do with the 4.5 hour drive from Denver’s frontrange combined with the relative non-swankiness of the town.
We purchased our 1 bedroom 1 bathroom, 630 square foot ski condo for $142,500 in August of 2017. A $226 per square foot investment for a ski in / ski out condo on what I think is one of the most fun mountains for extreme skiing in Colorado.
To be fair, this low price was definitely related to the “vintage” styling that remained in place since its 1980 build. Within 12 hours of owning it, we had stripped it down to the concrete flooring and taken out the entire kitchen. And only found a few dead mice hidden in cracks along the way.
As of today, Zillow is estimating our value at $346,100[1]. That’s 2.43 times what we purchased at in about 4.5 years – so up about 140%. During that same timeframe, the S&P is up about 78%[2]. So even excluding the personal life experiences of using it, it’s about 2 times better returns than the S&P. But the life value of this place is probably even better than that.
Best Lifestyle Investment
I think everyone has an aspirational vision of themselves in their head. For many of us, the foundations of these are around being more fit, more successful, wealthier, more loved, smarter etc. Yet somehow the actions to achieve these things often translate to buying stuff. Stuff that gives the perception that we have achieved that aspirational self.
Imagine if you could take a vacation almost every weekend to your favorite place to do your favorite activities and go to your favorite restaurants. That’s what Crested Butte is to us.
Every weekend I go to the mountains to ski, hike, mountain bike and then come home to a hot shower and to sit in front of the fireplace with a good book.
It’s been good for my physical health.
It’s been good my mental health.
It’s been good for my marriage.
It’s been good for our financial health.
The Downside To Our Second Home
If I had to pick a negative, it would likely be getting wrapped up in the “should have” game. It’s the hindsight problem. Looking back we think “why didn’t we buy a bigger place?”, “why didn’t we buy TWO places?”. Property values were so cheap back then.
It’s What We Could Afford
The simplest and most honest answer is because it was what we could comfortably afford at the time. Between the downpayment and the money needed to renovate it, we used up all of our excess cash reserves. We live financially conservatively, so we wanted to keep our 3-6 month savings reserves intact.
It Seemed Like The Best Value
We did look at a number of other condo’s ranging from about $180,000 to $220,000 that we could have made work with a little more stretch.