Twelve months ago, our crystal ball was crystal clear. After two years of vertiginous price growth in mountain resorts across Europe and North America, it was apparent that the market could not sustain continued increases of 15% (or more, in some cases) per annum. Our prediction that the market would split into two tiers – with a flattening of the curve at the mid to lower end, and a continuation of price growth at the ultra-prime end – duly transpired.

Fast forward to autumn 2023 and our crystal ball is now a little hazier. In September 2023, for the first time in 15 meetings, the Bank of England chose not to raise interest rates. This pause for breath is likely to be emulated by both the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank in the coming months, as they too reflect upon whether fiscal tightening has the desired effect of lowering embedded inflation.

One thing is clear: higher interest rates have unquestionably deterred some potential buyers in the Alps. ’Investor’ type buyers can no longer generate positive returns if they have more than a 50% loan-to-value mortgage. Even if they wanted to, British buyers, post-Brexit, still find it virtually impossible to find a mortgage product in France. Fortunately for developers and private sellers, there are plenty of other domestic and European buyers to help sustain demand.

At higher price levels, in excess of €/CHF 3 million, the mortgage market is less of a factor. High-net-worth buyers are typically less reliant on debt and would ordinarily only use a bank loan to deploy capital elsewhere, or as a fiscal instrument to reduce wealth tax. Combined with continued shortages of alpine property across all price levels, ultra-prime resorts have held strong, with only 20% experiencing price falls.

With government elections both sides of the Atlantic in 2024, inflationary pressures and continuing geopolitical unrest, the uncertainty in the global economy prevails. Although the ski property market continues to defy such external influences, predicting the trends over the next 12 months is harder.

Meanwhile, our 18th annual Ski Report takes a closer look at the prime and ultra-prime prices of the world’s top ski resorts and offers our market outlook for some of the most popular. We also consider the growth of luxury retail brands in the world’s leading ski resorts and publish our perennial Savills Ski Resilience Index, where there have been some interesting changes at the top. We hope very much that you enjoy reading the report and remain cautiously optimistic for the forthcoming season.

_{Read the other articles within The Ski Report below}