International (Europe/Japan/Southern Hemisphere) European ski towns to consider purchasing a ski condo/home in?

[Zirbl]

Just to whet the OP's appetite: This is a huge farmhouse within an hour of GVA, very close to Grand Massif ski area, in the beautiful Giffre river valley, but also to Les Gets/Morzine/Avoriaz, 1.5 million eurodollars but given current economy, probably would take less. https://alpine-property.fr/samoens/ferme-jutteninges/4891# (click on more photos)

Ferme Jutteninges - Samoëns & Vallée

Une ferme de 7 chambres et 6 salles de bain, datant du 12ème siècle. A 10 minutes de Samoëns

alpine-property.fr

This is in Les Houches, in the Cham valley: (pricey area, but just to show what you can get for a relatively low price)

Chalets et appartements à vendre à Les Houches - Alpine Property, Agence Immobiliere

Chalets et appartements à vendre à Les Houches

alpine-property.fr

here's the fancy stuff: https://www.barnes-montblanc.com

They were talking condos. I've seen perfectly decent-looking apartments in the Aosta Valley going for as little as 70,000 euros.

 

[Rod9301]

As entertaining as it would be to have a house over there to fly back and forth to, I think you've got far higher quality skiing from a snow point of view in the US. Yes, it costs more for a lift ticket, but you don't have the border and visa issues and, let's face it, the huge crowds they have. A BIGGER PERCENTAGE OF EUROPEANS SKI. When you see the massive investments made in lifts you realize they are ready for volume. And yes, there are quaint restaurants spread around the mountains with far better food than we get, because all the hordes are actually there to party. They start late, they stop for a long lunch, ski a little more, then hit the bars.

Frankly, I like my ski area quiet and not packed with Hermann Maier wannabes. You'll find more of the quiet, serious skiing, with lower prices, in the NW corner of this country. None of them have glitz and glamor, but the winters start early and the snow quality holds up.

You go to Europe for ambiance and history and eating. You go to the Rockies if you want to ski.

I don't even know, or have the energy to answer this pretty biased post.

Wrong though.

 

[Wasatchman]

I bought a house in luz St Sauveur, French pyrenees. 350,000 usd, 5 bedroom 3 bathrooms, 2,000 sq feet.

Restaurants, half the us price.

Bareges, out resort has over 80 couloirs, from steep to very steep. Nobody but us ski them, untracked for weeks.

Damn. Maybe I should move.

 

[Bolder]

Yeah but it's all context dependent. I remember skiing L2A one New Year week when weather closed out the upper mountains - it literally was not worth skiing given the crowds competing for the remaining lifts and I took a long walk home through town as a result. Not that different from say Palisades when only KT22 and Red Dog are spinning. In Europe modern lift capacity can get people up the mountains but poor natural snowfall can concentrate them dangerously on the smae few runs

Agreed, but those are edge cases. All things being equal US resorts have more crowding issues IME.

Either way, if you're already a committed skier in the US, European crowds won't faze you.

They were talking condos. I've seen perfectly decent-looking apartments in the Aosta Valley going for as little as 70,000 euros.

I know. This is real estate porn. But we don't know the OP's budget, so I'm assuming they appreciate the finer things...

In the French Alps you can also buy apartments for 70-200k euros. However, most are small, as in 30-60 square meters. We stayed in a bunch of them, and some are actually perfectly fine for small families, but if you want to have friends ski with you, they don't work. There are also lots of horror stories about the quality of the buildings -- cheap apartments often go hand in hand with suboptimal construction, and as an absentee owner things can go pear-shaped if you don't speak the language.

There are not many 3br apartments in ski towns for sale in Europe. There are some traditional condos as you'd find in North America, but not as many as you'd think. If you really want space (depending on your budget ofc) you'll need to also take a look at freestanding chalets.

 

[Zirbl]

In the French Alps you can also buy apartments for 70-200k euros. However, most are small, as in 30-60 square meters.

Sorry, should have said I meant proper residential flats, not the resort stuff.

 

[Bolder]

^^True, I do like the Aosta valley and the idea of Italy in general. You have Pila, Monterosa, Courmayeur and even Cervinia relatively close by. And I'm always excited by Italian food and coffee. plus Turin/Milan/Lombardy towns are close. I don't know how many Anglophone expats there are in the area but I imagine there's a community within Aosta town.

The problem with just saying "Europe" is that there are hundreds of options, in every budget and for nearly every type of skiing except for relatively consistent lift-accessible powder and hardcore ungroomed moguls. (which, I know, is what what many skiers live for...). IDK how you'd ever decide unless you have an affinity for a certain country. Out of France, Italy and Austria (Switzerland is not easy to buy in for foreigners), they each have a very distinct culture, and then within each country there are different areas that are also distinct, for example Pyrenees vs Alps vs southern Alps in France, Dolomites vs Alps in Italy, Arlberg vs. Kizbuhel etc...

 

[Cheizz]

Some general remarks on terrain and weather (and snow) patterns in the different zones in the Alps: https://www.skitalk.com/threads/know-where-to-go-in-the-alps.24434/

 

[Sibhusky]

I don't even know, or have the energy to answer this pretty biased post.

Wrong though.

Hey, I'd love to own a house in Austria for the rest of the year, but not for skiing.

Sure it's a biased answer, and it's based on limited (personal) data. But the OP has been one time to Europe and is looking to invest his hard earned cash based on that single visit. I think the OP should take a deep breath and decide what the goal is: "quality of terrain, quality of snow and not overly crowded slopes is much more important to us than a resort's amenities." Hell, the charm of the European ski trip is all about the amenities. But to be challenged by terrain, s/he's got to go off piste with all that entails. Here, pretty much every Western resort controls for avalanches and you've got free range within the circle of the ski boundaries to hit trees, steeps, chutes, etc. Let's leave aside the issues of borders and COVID as distractions from the bigger goal of owning a base location for SKIING. The snow is generally wetter in Europe than it is in the Rockies. And in 50 years of skiing, the only place where I had to worry about dust flying in from Africa was in Europe. There's a few places that maybe get dust from the Mojave desert here, but not on the scale the Alps had last winter, multiple events.

 

[fatbob]

Hey, I'd love to own a house in Austria for the rest of the year, but not for skiing.

Sure it's a biased answer, and it's based on limited (personal) data. But the OP has been one time to Europe and is looking to invest his hard earned cash based on that single visit. I think the OP should take a deep breath and decide what the goal is: "quality of terrain, quality of snow and not overly crowded slopes is much more important to us than a resort's amenities." Hell, the charm of the European ski trip is all about the amenities. But to be challenged by terrain, s/he's got to go off piste with all that entails. Here, pretty much every Western resort controls for avalanches and you've got free range within the circle of the ski boundaries to hit trees, steeps, chutes, etc. Let's leave aside the issues of borders and COVID as distractions from the bigger goal of owning a base location for SKIING. The snow is generally wetter in Europe than it is in the Rockies. And in 50 years of skiing, the only place where I had to worry about dust flying in from Africa was in Europe. There's a few places that maybe get dust from the Mojave desert here, but not on the scale the Alps had last winter, multiple events.

I'm on board with your thinking. I sense the OP has plenty of cash to burn so in some respects whatever they think will make them happy is fine. I accept that Europe has a romantic attraction for Americans but moreso probably for those that haven't weathered 2 month winter droughts or a week of wind/rain storms.

For pure skiing though as a US resident I'd look to somewhere I can access from an airport I can readily fly to - that might be Kalispell, Denver, Calgary. Of course that might not have the social or cultural cachet of somewhere in the Dolomites, Alps or Pyrenees and to be honest the places you can drive within a day of Whitefish look kinda the same (not to say say Glacier/WL NP and the Banff area NPs are not world beating scenic) compared to Toulouse, Barcelona, Bilbao, Bordeaux from a base in the Pyrenees

 

[Rod9301]

I'm on board with your thinking. I sense the OP has plenty of cash to burn so in some respects whatever they think will make them happy is fine. I accept that Europe has a romantic attraction for Americans but moreso probably for those that haven't weathered 2 month winter droughts or a week of wind/rain storms.

For pure skiing though as a US resident I'd look to somewhere I can access from an airport I can readily fly to - that might be Kalispell, Denver, Calgary. Of course that might not have the social or cultural cachet of somewhere in the Dolomites, Alps or Pyrenees and to be honest the places you can drive within a day of Whitefish look kinda the same (not to say say Glacier/WL NP and the Banff area NPs are not world beating scenic) compared to Toulouse, Barcelona, Bilbao, Bordeaux from a base in the Pyrenees

Ok, i get it, skiing sucks in Europe and it doesn't snow and when it does it's wet

 

[fatbob]

Ok, i get it, skiing sucks in Europe and it doesn't snow and when it does it's wet

I'm not saying that - I've had and continue to have brilliant days in Europe every season (well apart from the year where everything was shutdown). But I'm also lucky enough to be able to fly shorthaul to most of the major ski areas and if I get closed out on a weekend its not the end of the world. I've also been droughted out around Xmas time in Colorado and Tahoe and recall a distinctly bare Park City late Feb prior to a JH gathering. No question that last season was bare in Italy generally - I had friends from Innsbruck go on a pre committed week down to Monterosa late Feb who said it was a total waste of time and they should have stayed home and written off the hotel cost.

It's skiing, nowhere is perfect , luck and time in the game matter more than precise planning more or less anywhere. Sometimes when I'm in the US skiing perfectly fine snow I see friends posting epic powder days from Arlberg or 3V and think why the hell have I bothered flying over here? Sometimes I'm in Europe thinking - I'm really glad I took a day off and came out this weekend. Sometimes the powder day forecast turns into a day getting plastered in clagg on the only T bar open while you know the morning after you fly out the sun will appear and the upper mountain will be heaven for a couple of days.

 

[msutherland]

Do you happen to know if there are certain weeks in March that are busier with families on vacation? I'm looking at flying there from March 6th-20th. Those can be busy Spring break times in the US but not sure if it is the same in Europe. Thanks!

I went to Zermatt / Cervinia in March right before covid shut everything down. We didn't wait in a line the entire 8 days . Im not sure if it wasnt crowded because Covid had just started or if its always that way but we absolutely loved it and was by far our favorite place we have ever skied in terms of amount of terrain, culture, food, etc. We havent done a lot of international skiing other than there, Innsbruck area resorts and Banff area resorts in Canada. We always go the first two weeks of March mostly in the go to Usa resorts but Zermatt / Cervinia was by far less crowded comparatively speaking. We also went to Banff Sunshine and Lake Louise last year at the end of April and it wasnt crowded there either even on the weekends.

 

[Sibhusky]

Of course that might not have the social or cultural cachet of somewhere in the Dolomites, Alps or Pyrenees and to be honest the places you can drive within a day of Whitefish look kinda the same (not to say say Glacier/WL NP and the Banff area NPs are not world beating scenic) compared to Toulouse, Barcelona, Bilbao, Bordeaux from a base in the Pyrenees

Yep. I'd love to have a place in Europe. But for touring, not skiing.

 

[surfandski]

I think I might agree with this re the skiing, and definitely snow quallity -- but I don't think border/visa issues should be a concern. After all, there are literally hundreds of thousands of non-Europeans who own property in the EU/UK/EMEA, and they come and go largely as they please. It's all doable.

Europe is a different place culturally than the US, so there's also the experience of being in a foreign country, which can be liberating in many ways (or isolating, depends how you play it...)

Crowds are really a non-issue, too. We've skiied almost exclusively during school breaks in France and Italy and with a little planning you can avoid pinch points etc. almost anywhere, even in the biggest resorts. A place like Dolomiti Superski is so vast that there will always be quiet areas where you can ski right onto the lift at any time.

Yes, the cultural aspect does play into our potential decision. I've lived about 7 years of my adult life living in a few South and Central American countries, so we really enjoy traveling and experiencing new cultures. We travel as a family a ton and have been averaging about 6 weeks per year skiing out west. My kids have road tripped to 35 and 38 of the 50 states and a number of countries. It's nothing for them to be in the car for 12-18 hrs in a day so it still blows my mind when I map out distances in Europe and think about all of the variety of culture we could experience in even just a short road trip. Though there are many things we love about the US (and have experienced first-hand that every country has its negatives), based upon how the last 20 years have gone, my personal opinion is that the US will see a higher rate at which it deteriorates culturally, than a lot of other countries, so it would be nice to have options.

 

[Nobody]

Well, thanks @Cheizz for calling me out. The main areas are those you
Coincidentally it is the same process we went through (on a lesser scale) when we decided the tiem had come to buy a small flat in the mountains.
Go something big and far from home? How far (I mean, travel by car, of course).
What prices? This settled it for us, practically all known names Cortina/Alta Badia/Dolomites are too far and to expensive for us, weekend warriors skiers. So we decied to stay in a 2-3 hrs or less time range form our lowland home.
In the prices, I also included transfer time and tolls (all highways basically in Italy)
That meant to stay in Lombardy so to avoid toll roads as well. I like freeride too, but overall that is pretty much limited here, compared to the amount of peopl skis the groomers.
In the early 2000' I started to ski Madesimo, up in the mountains here in Lombardy. When we started looking, we started there, but to find a flat at an approacheable price meant to set ourselves almost one hour from the resort. The added bonus was that we could have decided on the spot to go to Madesimo or St. Moritz in Switzerland from there. But in the end I wanted to be as close as possible to the resorts. Another place we eyed was Ponte di Legno, again too pricey, but we managed to find a nice cozy flat down the valley at an affordable price. Hence Pont-di-Legno-Tonale ski area became our home in the mountain. The bonus is that we got to become friends with quite a lot of the locals and after skiing is done for the day, we usually do not spend much time up in the valley where all the tourists spend their vacation.
Pretty much all locations are crowded in the peak periods (Christmas, or better from New Year's eve onward, February, Carnival, Easter)
But there is a chance that midweek , in January especially, one would feel alone.
Alagna is a nice place, it has retained an old-time aura but still is part of the Monterosa Ski, so there's pretty much a lot to ski.
A better place would be, a bit more lively I mean, Champoluc, or Gressoney. In short look for a resotrt that suits you, and then move al look for housing with a price that is in your target but be prepared to look some km away from the "centre" (we are based some 6-12 km from the first accessible lifts, in the preseason and post season that becomes 20km).
In Franche there's plenty of Brits living on the mountain, those that have managed to retain their rights to stay and live (work, get a living) there either obtaining a double citizenship or a permanent residence permit after Brexit.
I think Switzerland is off limits, both pricewise but also because in many States/Regions (Cantons) laws prohibit to sell to non-permanent residents...
As for the language barrier, I can't really say, most people do speak English around here, in some form, especially the young generations (I'm a "gen X", FWIW). As for animosity toward Americans, mmh, I cannot comment, having none myself. What I mean is, you will always, while travelling, stumble across some people who has a grudge against someone else, up to you to decide to let these people influence your experience and to which extent, or better, turn to those who welcome you. Embrace the good, discard the bad. You'll have to probe around and feel the atmosphere directly, to decide whether there is any or not.

 

[Nobody]

Forgot to say...
One important aspect in your decisino making procss will be, IHMO, to examine the "hidden" aspects of purchasing a home (flat, condo, whatever) in a caountry where you do not stabily reside.
Ownerships taxes (on the property, for garbage, water, etc), energy bills (electricity and heating/cooknig, most likely gas, but if you find a home high enough inthe mountain, gas might not be available, so heating and cooking will exploit other means...like a tank that gets filled - and needs to be paid beforehand). Road and ownership taxes for a car, And so on...
Research and get also acquainted with the involved bureaucracy that gets behind an home acquisition...

 

[Rod9301]

Forgot to say...
One important aspect in your decisino making procss will be, IHMO, to examine the "hidden" aspects of purchasing a home (flat, condo, whatever) in a caountry where you do not stabily reside.
Ownerships taxes (on the property, for garbage, water, etc), energy bills (electricity and heating/cooknig, most likely gas, but if you find a home high enough inthe mountain, gas might not be available, so heating and cooking will exploit other means...like a tank that gets filled - and needs to be paid beforehand). Road and ownership taxes for a car, And so on...
Research and get also acquainted with the involved bureaucracy that gets behind an home acquisition...

True, but all these costs are a lot less than in the US
For example, fur my house in the pyrenees, all taxes, water, electricity etc under 3,000 eyes a year, on a 350,000 $ house

 

[Nobody]

Agree, what I was implying is that, oftentimes, when there are also language and culture shitf/changes involved , things tend to appear to us more difficult and thus sometimes one is discouraged, hence, better to be prepared.

 

[Wasatchman]

True, but all these costs are a lot less than in the US
For example, fur my house in the pyrenees, all taxes, water, electricity etc under 3,000 eyes a year, on a 350,000 $ house

Nuclear power sure has its benefits for your energy prices. What are maintenance costs like as far as materials, labor, etc?

 

[Rod9301]

Nuclear power sure has its benefits for your energy prices. What are maintenance costs like as far as materials, labor, etc?

Cheap compared to the us