The Most Expensive Town in America

[mahatmakanejeeves]

If you've ever seen the Friday Wall Street Journal,, you know that it has several pages of advertising for sensationally expensive real estate. Today's paper has an article about the housing market in Aspen, Colorado. I've never been to Aspen, but I have been to Jackson Hole, a town that is mentioned in the article. A lot of foreign money is buying up property in Aspen.

The Most Expensive Town in America

Defying the national housing slump, Aspen's prices are rising. Why the glitzy ski enclave is outpacing the Hamptons, Beverly Hills and Palm Beach.

By NANCY KEATES
Aspen, Colo.

The lowest-priced single-family home on the market in Aspen is listed for $559,000. It's located in a trailer park.

While most housing markets in the rest of the country continue to struggle with anemic demand and foreclosures—and sales at many other luxury ski resorts are still sluggish—Aspen has forged its own orbit. The average home price in this mountain town has increased over the past four years, to $6 million in 2010 from $5.4 million in 2006, according to multiple-listings data. The median price for single-family homes is now the highest in the country at $4.6 million, says San Francisco-based Altos Research, surpassing the Hamptons, Beverly Hills and Palm Beach.

Sales of luxury Aspen estates—the sorts of over-the-top places with leather walls and outdoor heated infinity pools—have remained remarkably healthy, thanks in part to foreign buyers. Of the 25 real-estate transactions recorded by Pitkin County for the week of Jan. 19 to 25, five were buyers from abroad, including three Australians and people from Turkey and Hong Kong.

Last month, a home in the Maroon Creek neighborhood with an indoor heated swimming pool, basketball court and outdoor hot tub overlooking a waterfall sold for $13 million. The buyer was Russian Alexander Zanadvorov, the 40-year-old owner of Sedmoi Kontinent, a chain of supermarkets.

[tularetom]

1. Wealthy people from all over the world will flock to America

They know they will be protected from us dirty icky poor folks and they will get a good deal on taxes from our government.

Should do wonders for the median household incomes statistics but it won't mean jack shit for most of us.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Waiting for serious winter weather changes in Aspen, I am.

[jwirr]

3. I've heard the "drugs" are pretty costly there.