Well, the Sundance Film Festival ended this Sunday and we have reclaimed our town. From everything that I have heard, 2012 Sundance was a success with many films selling, the weather cooperated by snowing heavily, and I think everyone generally had a good time. So now on to the next event, which begins this week. This coming Wednesday we kick off the start of the annual FIS Freestyle World Cup with a street concert on Main Street and a commemoration of the 10-year anniversary of the 2002 winter Olympics. There will be a lot of celebration with former Olympic athletes, big screen TVs showing highlights of the Olympics, pin trading tents and everyone telling their favorite Olympic stories. Then Thursday, Friday and Saturday is the World Cup Freestyle at Deer Valley. Thursday being qualifying, Friday evening under the lights will be a men's and women's aerial competition, and then Saturday night under the nights will be the premier event: the dual mogul competition. This is where skiers to go head-to-head down a very steep mogul field and are judged on time, techniques and form on two jumps in the middle of the mogul field. Come back next week for photos of this event.

Great video: Building the World Cup Courses at Deer Valley Resort

In real estate news I did a couple of searches and found some pretty interesting numbers. For this ski season, which would be From Christmas through the end of January, here in Silver Lake in mid-mountain Deer Valley, 11 homes and condos have sold, ranging in price for a low of $550,000 to just over $3,000,000 for condos, and a high of over $7,500,000 for homes. What's really interesting is that during the same time period last year there were zero sales for homes or condos in Silver Lake. Another interesting report that I pulled up was in an area called Park Meadows--which tends to be a full-time residential community--in 2011 over 60 homes sold. And there are currently only about 30 homes listed for sale. This is the first time in many years that we have seen less than a years' inventory available in any area of Park City. Everything that I'm looking at is indicating that the fourth quarter of 2011 is up substantially over the fourth quarter of any year going back to 2008. As I have mentioned in the past I feel that this is a combination of three things: prices are low, inventory is down thus creating some urgency, and the economy has certainly made a dramatic recovery since the fourth quarter of 2008. From just watching and listening to agents in my small office (only seven of us) I am observing a lot of activity with agents writing offers and having offers presented on their listings. This is really terrific news for everybody in Park City, RE agents, sellers and buyers alike, and we all hope that this is the start of a good trend.

While this certainly is not a snow year like it was last year, we have over a four-foot base of snow and the skiing is absolutely delightful. One benefit to a year like this is that the temperatures are milder, mostly in the 20s and 30s, and we have more bright sunshiny days than we've had for a while. So as always when you come out for your ski trip, give me a call or stop in my office for my pick of the best skiing, dining, and activities.