Labor Day review, 60 Days 'Till Ski Season

Mammoth Lakes, Labor Day-style:


Arts & Crafts festval at Sam's Woods site. Fun to walk around, run into locals, chat it up and get a Brat at Red's hot dog cart. Steven White's furniture is always amazing.


Free Mountain Biking: Took my brother (F-15 pilot) and his buddy (test pilot) mountain biking. If you don't want to pay to mountain bike on the ski area, here are two trails that are just as good, if not better than most of the trails on the mountain:



Mountain View Trail: Drive up Minaret Rd all the way past the ski area's Main Lodge and park at the Minaret Summit parking lot. Follow the signs (brown sign with yellow arrow and with little mtn bikes in all four corners of the sign) down and away from the main lodge on nice hard packed dirt. Emerges into a pumice field with criss crossing snowmobile paths. Then along hillside with brief bet great views of the Inyo craters. The trail basically parallels Minaret Rd down to the earthquake fault. 1 hour.



Lakes Basin - Panorama Dome - Mammoth Rock Trail: Fun single track / hiking trail around Horseshoe Lake, on past the west side of Maime, and then taking Lake Mary Rd down to the Panorama Dome trailhead. Talk about short but sweet. Feel like you are an Ewok on one of those antigravity speeders winding through trees, dodging branches. Packed dirt, fun banked curves. Lets you out onto Old Mammoth Rd. Cruise down a 1/4 mile to the Mammoth Rock trailhead. Great views of the Snowcreek meadow and of town. Cruise past old avalanche paths and beneath the monstrous Mammoth Rock. Lets you out on Sherwin Creek Rd. Turn left and head back to town. 1 hour.

Mammoth Rock Race: Speaking of the Mammoth Rock trail, Andrew Kastor (High Sierra Striders) and Ilana Levin (High Sierra Tri Club) put on another fantastic 10k race. Starting at Mammoth Creek Park, head out Sherwin Creek Rd, up Mammoth Rock Trail and down Old Mammoth Rd. I was 29 seconds shy of meeting my goal of breaking 50 minutes. Photos here: http://stimbo.myjalbum.net/Mammoth%20Rock%20Race/

Real Estate over Labor Day: NO condos went into escrow during this past week that included Labor Day. I'm finding it better to go out and meet people at outdoor social events and talk real estate than to sit an open house - my colleagues report dismal attendance at their open houses.

60 Days 'Till Ski Season! If you are a buyer and want to get into a rental condo before Ski Season, September 8th is 60 days (i.e. a good escrow period) away from Opening Day.

• Ten condos are reduced 15%+ from their original list price.


• I like the Bridges (ski-in/ski-out)2bd/2ba for $731,000 (which you could probably get for $715,000).


• I like the Eagle Run (ski-in/ski-out) 2bd/2ba for $799,000. Sierra Megeve 2bd/2ba for $525,900 is walking distance to Canyon Lodge and a good deal.


• The Pointe owner is desperate to sell - listed at $839,900 for 3bd/3ba/garage.


• Timberridge 2bd/2ba/garage owner is also willing to sell for a loss (he bought for $665k but will probably take under $600k). You can ski-in/ski-out from this property, too.


• Western Slopes Villas 1bd/1ba/garage for $375,000 is becoming more of a deal. Great condition, walk to Canyon Lodge.


• If you are in to Crowley Lake, for $650,000 you can get 3bd/2.5bath/2-car garage/ 2300 sqft house on 1 acre with stream and view of Crowley Lake.
  

Cool Health Website: Saw a cool website today, http://www.wellfolio.com/, where you can input key health statistics and see how you match up with celebrity athletes, like our own Deena Kastor.



Fall Colors: While anxious about summer coming to and end soon, the fall colors are always such a beautiful site. Don't worry, they are not here yet, but some of the Aspens have started fading to a yellowish-green. Great areas to visit include the June Lake Loop and Lundy Canyon. Even South Lake above Bishop is great.



See you around town!

Just another Sunday in Mammoth + Real Estate stats

More lifestyle examples for those of you interested in how to live in Mammoth, like if you own a place here and ever thought about moving here full time.

Sunday, July 8
(1) Church Service on the deck at Pokonobe Lodge overlooking Lake Mary at 8:30 am. I have stepped down as the music leader for these services, pastored by the great Fred Weatherly, but still continue to help out on piano. Good to see worshippers who come once a year to Mammoth and join us during their week away from the stress and traffic of L.A., which they are always thankful for. Little smoke in the air from the Inyo Complex fires down in Big Pine and Independence. Got to play "Blessed Be Your Name," one of my current favorites.

(2) Mountain Biked in the afternoon with two buddies whose presence increased the testosterone level above what would have been if mtn biked individually. Went down, or should I say survived, Skid Marks, Velocity, and Shock Absorber. Shock Absorber should be a double black diamond rather than the single it is rated. Very short, steep, winding sections through the trees. The landings were too short to check your speed before the next descent - we saw guys in full gear bailing off their bikes. Makes me want a bike with more than 3 - 3.5" of travel.

(3) BBQ'd at a buddy's house. He's actually a Realtor at a competing firm, but that's what's cool about Mammoth. We are not as cutthroat as we hear about in other cities. I'd say that 90% of our local Realtor community works well together. You've got do - it's a small town. My buddy's and my daughter are about 5 months apart, so they played while he shared a Canadian beer with me and our wives shared their giving birth stories. Yuck.

This week we prepare for the annual Jazz Jubilee. The tents are up, T-shirts printed and trolleys primed to take the jazz-loving generation around to the Woods, Church, Big Top, etc sites.

Real Estate:
On the real estate front, things are very slow in Mammoth right now (evidenced by the fact that I am writing this blog...but I hope to maintain the blog even when it gets busy as a channel to replace my real estate newsletter).

I regularly download all sales and listing data from our Multiple Listing Service and then pour through it, organize it into pivot tables, create formulas from the raw data to make some sense of it, and graph it. I hope to share you snippets of useful data, like the following:

$/SQFT
Condos: Average price per square foot of condos sold so far this year is only down 3% to $529/sqft from 2006, but 2006 was down 4% from 2005.
Homes: We're actually up about 1% to $453/sqft this year over last year, but down from $464/sqft in 2005.

Sales Counts
Condos: In the first half of 2007, only 83 condos have sold vs. 202 during the first half of 2006 and 302 in the first half of 2005.
Homes: For homes, the numbers are 26 this year, 28 last year and 59 in the first half of 2005.

Sale Price / List Price
Another telling statistic is what sales prices are as a percentage of original list price. Condos are down to 94% so far this year after two straight years at 97%. Homes sale prices are down to 88% of their original list price vs. 95% in 2005 then 91% last year.

Do prices have further to drop? I think so. Sellers are getting more and more impatient and the real sellers will drop prices further. See my blog on ActiveRain about our two different types of sellers.