It has been a sensational start to winter in the Alps. The first big snows hit
Austria in early November, and they have been followed by a succession of
blizzards in France – culminating in the storms of last weekend, which
dropped up to a metre of snow in some resorts. The skies have now cleared,
the temperature has stayed low, and anyone who has taken to the slopes in
the past four days will have had an experience they won’t easily forget.
Needless to say, skiers and snowboarders are buzzing.
But that’s not to say they’ve forgotten last winter. Back in December 2006,
webcam images of grassy pistes and bare rock flashed around the virtual
world, scaring a lot of people witless. Admittedly, December was rather
early to be writing off an entire season, but it seemed to confirm
everyone’s worst fears about global warming. In 2003, a report from the
United Nations Environment Programme had predicted the demise of many
lowlying ski resorts during the next half-century. Powder-hounds everywhere
were starting to wonder if catastrophe had arrived early.
Luckily, as the latest snowfalls have shown, it’s not all over yet. But nobody
with a long-term interest in the Alps is betting against climate change –
and that includes those in the ski-property market. For buyers and builders
alike, there is only one rule at the moment: aim high for reliable snow. For
most, the minimum height at which a resort must be built hovers between
about 1,600 metres and 1,800 metres – although there needs to be be plenty
of skiing above that, at 2,500 metres or higher. A new kind of mile-high
club has been born.
Some already popular high-altitude resorts have been benefiting from the
growing fears about global warming for several years. Val d’Isère, for
example, already one of the most famous resorts in the French Alps, is 1,850
metres up, near the Italian border. Part of the Espace Killy ski area, it
shares a lift system with nearby Tignes, and together they offer a superb
variety of terrain to a height of 3,455 metres. Prices have climbed to
astonishing levels.
“When freestanding chalets were priced at £3,600 a square metre, we all
thought they’d reached their peak,” says Andy Sturt, managing director of
the twin holiday companies Snowline and VIP, which have been building
chalets in the resort since 2000. “We were pinching ourselves when they
reached £11,000 a square metre last winter, but now they’re selling at
£14,000.”
Sturt does not expect to see this price rise further in the near future,
however. British buyers have been driving the Alpine property market for
several years, and the wobbles in the British domestic market are sure to
have a dampening effect on demand. But he can’t imagine prices in Val
d’Isère actually falling.
“There’s a market at any price for chalets in Val,” he says, “because there’s
only a handful of chic, cosmopolitan resorts in the Alps at 1,600 metres or
higher that are open to foreign investors.” To prove his point, he counts
them off: “Val d’Isère, Courchevel and, well, that’s it.”
At these altitudes, it should be years before global warming melts property
values – if it ever does. In the meantime, investors can enjoy the fruits of
their prudence in the form of top-notch skiing.
That’s what Tynesider David Leonard, 52, discovered when he bought a small
one-bed flat in La Daille, a suburb of Val d’Isère, 18 months ago. La Daille
is Val’s great mistake – an ugly high-rise development on the road into town.
Most people love to hate it: but it sits at the bottom of three lifts offering
quick access to the heart of the skiing. Leonard bought his pad through Erna
Low (020 7590 1624, www.ernalowproperty. co.uk) for £150,000, which included
a 4.4% leaseback deal (see below), allowing him three weeks of personal use
in the winter.
“It’s only 37 square metres,” he says, “but it will fit four people if you use
the sofa bed, and we only use it to sleep and eat breakfast in.” The rest of
the time, he’s skiing with his friends – ranging across 300km of pistes and
10,000 hectares of off-piste terrain. His next trip is on January 20, but he
has been watching the latest epic snowfalls and kicking himself that he
didn’t book a week off before Christmas. “I just can’t wait to get back out
there,” he says.
Leonard, of course, has bought into an Alist destination, albeit in the less
glamorous part of town. But altitude is adding glamour to Blist resorts,
too. So, where should you go hunting before everyone else does?
FRANCE
Just off the road to Chamonix, and an hour’s drive from Geneva airport,
Flaine, on the French-Swiss border, is worth investigating. Developed in the
1960s, the resort is set in a natural, steep-sided bowl about 20km from Mont
Blanc, and has Bauhaus architecture, as well as sculptures by Picasso and
Jean Dubuffet. For years, the holiday market has shunned it: all that poured
concrete is a little too uncompromising. And, with the exception of a 1980s
Scandinavian-style chalet scheme, there has been no significant new
development since it was built. As a result, the resort has only 9,000 guest
beds, compared with 27,000 in Val d’Isère.
Yet Flaine sits at an altitude of 1,600 metres. The highest point in the ski
area is only 2,480 metres, but the shape of the bowl, and its proximity to
the highest peak in the Alps, ensures a supersnowy microclimate.
Suddenly, developers have woken up to its potential, and Intrawest, a Canadian
company, has led the charge back into the resort with its Flaine Montsoleil
development (0808 234 1322, www.flaine-montsoleil.com).
Consisting of five blocks, built in distinctly unBauhaus style, it sits on a
natural ledge above the rest of the resort. Intrawest’s strength as a
developer is that it provides lots of infrastructure for its developments:
Montsoleil will have not only restaurants, a spa and shops, but its own piste
and chairlift, connecting it with the rest of the resort.
Buyers have responded enthusiastically, despite the – for Flaine – high
prices. Most flats in the first stage – about 100 – are already sold or
under offer, and more will be made available next month. In total, there
will be 500 properties. For £180,000, you can buy a north-facing one-bedder;
£643,000 gets you a fourbed duplex. Leaseback deals are also available:
these allow buyers to lease their properties to the developer, which fills
them with paying guests in return for a guaranteed income (usually 3%-5% of
the purchase price). Not only does this help pay the mortgage, itallows
buyers to claim back the 19.6% Vat from the French government, an incentive
designed to keep resorts filled.
La Plagne, 75 miles from Chambéry airport, is another resort that is coming
back from the dead. It, too, is a high-concept project of the 1960s and
1970s that has struggled because of ugly architecture and a questionable
layout. But with skiing to 3,250 metres, and most of its purpose-built
villages set at 1,800 metres or above, it was only a matter of time before
money came flooding back. Belle Plagne, at 2,050 metres, is the focus for
much of the activity.
Developments there include refurbish-ments of existing schemes, as well as
new-builds. Savills (020 7016 3740, www.alpinehomesintl.com),
for example, is selling flats in the remodelled Centaure residence and spa:
prices start at £100,000 for a studio, rising to £434,000 for a
three-bedroom flat. One-bedroom properties in the Chalet Hotel Montalys
development are available for £204,000, off-plan, with Erna Low (020 7590
1624, www.ernalowproperty.co.uk).
In both cases, there is good access to lifts.
ITALY
Italy is also well stocked with high-altitude resorts that are ripe for
reassessment. What’s more, prices are low. Pila, at 1,800 metres, sits
immediately above the town of Aosta, which lies in the valley of the same
name in the northwest of the country, near the border with France. It is
small, but perfectly formed in skiing terms, and close to several larger
high-quality resorts, including Cervinia and Monterosa.Studio flats in the
centre,near the lifts, can be had for just £72,000 through Agenzia San Grato
(00 39 0165 32956, www.agenziasangrato.com).
AUSTRIA AND SWITZERLAND
Both these countries have colder climates than France and Italy, and tend to
have longer, more reliable winters. Still, it doesn’t hurt to aim high.
Saas-Fee, in the Valais canton of southern Switzerland, for example, is at
1,800 metres, with skiing up to 3,500 metres on its glacier – where it
regularly snows even in summer. It is a 3½hour drive from Zurich or Geneva
airport. As with many other Swiss cantons, there are tight restrictions on
the number of foreigners who are allowed to buy into resorts each year, but
Investors in Property (020 8905 5511, www.investorsinproperty.com)
is selling two new-build, three-bed chalets in the car-free village for
£390,000; they are 10 minutes from the lifts by electric bus.
In Austria, about 90km from Salzburg, Obertauern has long been regarded as a
copy of the charmless purpose-built resorts pioneered in France, and for
many years it has been about as popular. But it sits at 1,740 metres, an
altitude the market can no longer ignore, especially as restrictions on
foreign buyers apply in many similar high-altitude resorts throughout the
Tyrol, to the west. Savills (020 7016 3740, www.alpinehomesintl.com)
is marketing the Zehnerkar Mountain Resort, where one, two- and three-bed
flats start at £148,000, off-plan. An eight-bed, seven-bathroom chalet in Le
Tour, a small and largely undiscovered village at 1,450 metres in the
Domaine du Balme ski area. It is close to Chamonix’s extensive area of
high-altitude skiing.
For sale for £1.08m, through Knight Frank; 020 7629 8171, www.knightfrank.com
Higher ground
A fourbed chalet in the heart of Sainte-Foy-Tarentaise, a traditional ski
resort near Val d’Isère, Tignes and Les Arcs. It has a sauna, a hot tub and
a garage.
For sale for £709,000, through PFI International; 01372 378414, www.propertyfranceitaly.com
A fully furnished one-bedroom, ski-in ski-out flat at the Chalet Hotel
Montalys, in Belle Plagne, France, due for completion next December. It
isabout 90 minutes’ drive from Chambéry.
For sale for £204,000, through Erna Low; 020 7590 1624, www.ernalowproperty.co.uk
A two-bedroom flat at the Zehnerkar Mountain Resort, in Obertauern, Austria.
The development of 41 flats, at 1,740 metres, is due to be completed in
December 2008. The resort has 120km of pistes.
For sale for £148,000, through Savills; 020 7016 3740, www.alpinehomesintl.com
Jimd - you've got to be joking!!! Val D'Isere is suberb skiing - best off piste and great restaurants. Definitely my favourite resort.
Victoria, London, UK
Victoria , London, UK
More silly ideas about ski property. Val d' Isere is a dump for 6 months of the year - and closed to boot- you will see more summer charm in a granite quarry. At Saas Fee you will need legs like tree trunks as most of the lifts require you to stand - even the gondola. Can't tell you the best places to buy or everyone would come and spoil it.
Jimd, Norwich, uk