Winter arrived in Verbier with a flurry of snowstorms in early November, turning the wonderful autumn mornings noticeably colder and reminding me that it was time to put the snow tyres on my car and collect my ski pass for the season. Meanwhile outside our office on Place Centrale, the huge tree is now up and decorated, ready to take centre stage for Christmas and New Year.
After two years when many skiers couldn’t reach the slopes, we’re expecting this December to be especially busy. The New Year week in particular is always a sell out here, the most expensive week of the year for rentals and this year I could have rented many of our properties two or three times over.
Christmas Day is always fun on the slopes but New Year’s Eve is the time for the really big celebrations. The Place Centrale is pedestrianised, people crowd onto balconies, singing and dancing as the DJ counts down to the New Year and champagne is sprayed liberally. It is a spectacular, fun and crazy night, always capped by someone trying to climb the Christmas tree.
I have lived in Verbier for over a decade and for the past few years I have escaped the crowds with friends, ski touring up the mountain with head torches and bottles of Veuve Clicquot in our backpacks, digging a fire pit in the snow and toasting marshmallows while watching the fireworks below. Once the celebrations are over, we pack up and ski back down under the moonlight. It’s a beautiful and much calmer start to the New Year.
In the Verbier office we will remember 2021 as a fantastic year in both sales and rentals, thanks to the dual seasonality of the resort, its beautiful chalets and excellent snow record, not to mention its incredible resilience over the past two years. Sale prices rose an average of 10 per cent over the year while our rental revenue has dramatically exceeded our expectations.
We’ve seen strong interest from the domestic market, either Swiss nationals or foreigners living in Switzerland, many of whom have chosen to work from home for extended periods in Verbier and enrol their children at its well-regarded International School. The Golden Triangle, from the Médran ski lifts to Le Rouge and down to the village centre remains Verbier’s prime address. Clambin, a small hamlet above the resort, is also popular. This exclusive area, known locally as 'little Sweden', is where we recently sold a wonderful off-market chalet for CHF 32,000 per sq m, significantly over our average 2021 sale price of CHF 22,000.
Like the rest of the world, we are waiting to find out what news of the Omicron variant will mean but, for now, 2022 looks like another champagne year for Verbier. The eternal demand for the resort coupled with a lack of stock, means we expect price rises to continue, both for sales and rentals. Verbier remains a sought-after ski resort that wealthy buyers prize highly.
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