How Long Should You Plan to Hold a Colorado Resort Property?

How Long Should You Plan to Hold a Colorado Resort Property?

Long enough to get past the years that don't cooperate. Based on more than 40 years of data for the Summit County and Breckenridge area, that's typically somewhere in the range of 7 to 10 years, and the numbers explain why.

Since 1980, Summit County real estate has appreciated in most years, sometimes sharply. 2022 saw values jump nearly 20 percent in a single year. But the same data shows real down years too: values fell more than 14 percent in 1984, dropped again in the mid-1980s, and declined for three straight years during the Great Recession, including a 7.4 percent drop in 2010. Anyone who bought at the wrong moment and needed to sell a year or two later could have lost money.

That's not the whole story, though. Zoom out to the full 46-year period, and the picture changes completely. The same index that fell 14.5 percent in 1984 and dropped through 2008 to 2011 still grew from a value of about 29 in 1979 to nearly 380 by 2025, a compound annual growth rate of 5.7 percent over the entire period. The short-term dips are real, but they get absorbed by a long-term trend that has consistently moved in one direction.

That's the actual argument for a 7 to 10 year hold. It's not a rule of thumb pulled from nowhere. It's roughly the length of time needed to ride through a down cycle like 1984 or 2008 to 2011 and still come out on the other side of the long-term curve rather than the middle of a temporary dip.

What this means for buyers: a resort property purchased with a short time horizon, planning to sell in a year or two, is making a bet on timing. A property purchased with a 7 to 10 year horizon is participating in a trend that has held for more than four decades, through recessions, rate cycles, and a pandemic.

This isn't a reason to rush a purchase or to assume every year will perform like 2022. It's a reason to think about a resort property the way the data actually supports: as a longer-term hold, not a short-term trade.

Data source: FHFA All-Transactions House Price Index via FRED (Summit County used as the closest available public proxy for the Breckenridge area). County-level indexes are developmental and subject to revision.