Considering Angel Fire, New Mexico

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wkoteras
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2005 1:52 pm

Considering Angel Fire, New Mexico

Post by wkoteras »

Does anyone have experience with Angel Fire from the VR point of view? The prices seem low, but are the rental rates high enough to make this a good investment community?

Thanks,
Wade
A-two
Posts: 2091
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:05 am
Location: USA

Post by A-two »

Wade,
I don't know Angel Fire personally, but I looked it up online and primarily it seems to be a winter ski resort, and not one built around an established community, rather the reverse. Would it be correct to say that the community is building itself around a new resort? There seem to many vacation homes there already and I found one agent online with 200 places listed. Perhaps he's the only agent, but even so, that's heavy competition for one small village/ town. I wonder how successful they are.

Personally, I would rather buy in a community where the majority are year round homes, then the atmosphere, culture and history has been well established before the tourists arrived and not overshadowed by them. The value will not then evaporate if the tourists leave. However, if you're a keen skier, snowboarder, and looking for something in a resort setting that is mainly for your own enjoyment, then I agree it looks gorgeous and I do love the name, it's very appealing. Perhaps it's the new Aspen, but what guarantees do you have?

In my experience, what makes VR a good investment is not the rental income, it's the capital gain, meaning the rise in the value of property over the period of your ownership which increases your equity. Therefore, I would do some digging around on sales prices over the last 5 yrs or so to see how they have changed for various types of properties and various neighborhoods. An agent can help you with that, but the information is available in the public domain in the US for you to check for yourself if you have the time - see www.domania.com . Also check the taxes if it's a new resort, because if they are still building schools, roads and other infrastructure, there may be special assessments in some neighborhoods that make them very high.
Waves from America
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