MAMMOTH LAKES: THE BRIDGE TO SOMEWHERE?

The skier bridge over Forest Trail has finally been completed. Here's the back story:

In the early 1990's a group of Mammoth landowners hatched a plan to redevelop the fading commercial district centered at Canyon and Minaret Roads. They dubbed this 64 acre expanse the North Village. What these pioneers envisioned was a new town center to replace the incoherent hodge podge of strip malls, isolated shops, gas stations and solitary businesses that had sprung up, without real planning or attention to theme, to become the Town of Mammoth Lakes.

When Intrawest, fresh from triumphs at the Whistler/Blacomb and Tremblant ski resorts in Canada, purchased 33% of Mammoth Mountain Ski Area in 1996 they acquired the Mountain's real estate interests as well, including 14 key acres in the heart of the proposed North Village. The Canadian company quickly began drawing plans.

Their proposal created excitement. Not only did Intrawest have the clout to pull off a project the size of the North Village that might transform Mammoth's identity, they seemed to have the vision as well.

Full color glossy marketing material from 2002 show condo/hotels--White Mountain Lodge, Lincoln House, and Grand Sierra Lodge--assembled around a lively gondola plaza and bustling pedestrian promenade. At the end of the promenade a bridge spans Forest Trail, connecting the Village to a ski back trail winding through the nearby woods.

After nearly a decade it's finally here. The bridge opened on February 11th in a ribbon cutting ceremony dampened by weather, diminished expectations, escalating gasoline prices and a $30 million dollar judgment against the Town of Mammoth Lakes. Still you can now ski from Hanzel and Gretel right into The Village for a midday sandwich or Kioki coffee.  So wax em up, you'll feel better after lunch.

MAMMOTH MOUNTAIN: FEBRUARY STORM DROPS 5-7 FEET

After a record snowfall in December and a nearly dry January, a four day storm system arrived February 16th and dumped 5 to 7 feet of dry snow on Mammoth Mountain's slopes setting up an epic President's Day weekend.

Many locals were calling the powder skiing some of best they'd ever seen. "It was thigh to waist deep in the Avi Chutes," local resident and powder hound Jon Lonne told the Flash about his Friday morning outing. "The only reason I quit was that my legs were shot."

Before the season weather prognosticators had warned that a large La Nina cold water mass in the Pacific could produce extremes of both wet and dry this year and so far they've been proved right. December's record 209 inches was followed by a mere dusting of 29 inches of snowfall in January.

The latest storm brings the season snowfall total up to a comfortable 394 inches, nearly 50 inches above the 40 year annual average and just 20 inches below the average for the past 10 years. More snow is expected by the weekend.

MAMMOTH MOUNTAIN SKI AREA PLANS EAGLE BASE LODGE

Mammoth Mountain Ski Area hopes to begin constructing the long delayed base facility at Eagle Express (chair 15) in early 2012 according to MMSA director of planning and development, Tom Hodges. 

The ski area is soliciting architectural treatments for a 40,000 square foot lodge that will replace the two temporary Little Eagle "tents" of just 15,000 square feet the Mountain has operated out of for nearly a decade.

 Little Eagle 'Tents' and Eagle Express Chair

 All the usual base services will be housed in the new building including, ticket sales, ski school, rentals, sport and repair shops, lockers and a cafeteria. The Mountain hopes to have the facility open by the winter of 2013-2014.

Although MMSA has another 4 1/2 years of authority to use the temporary structures, Hodges said that visitors, who have made Eagle Run as popular as the Main Lodge in recent years, "deserve better."

The weak development environment has, for now, thwarted ambitions to combine the base lodge with a condo/hotel real estate venture as initially planned, but the design will allow for future developments.

HEATING SYSTEM FAULT CLOSES THE MAMMOTH WESTIN FOR A WEEK

Temporary Boiler On Line Thursday Morning

The Westin Monache, Mammoth's lone 4 star hotel, was closed Wednesday, January 19, due to smoke coming from the heating system's flue. The exhaust flue of the hotel's propane fired boiler overheated causing insulation material to smolder inside the nine story flue chase. Smoke was sucked into the building's ventilation system and circulated to many of the rooms. The boiler had to be shut down and guests were relocated to neighboring lodging.

After a week of cleanup and air filtering, the heating system was coupled to an industrial looking boiler chugging away outside the hotel entry. By the evening of Thursday the 27th, the Westin was ready to receive guests again.  An investigation is underway to sort out the cause of the malfunction.

2010 Mammoth Real Estate Sales Climb

Sales were up last year as buyers discovered value in Mammoth real estate. 371 condos changed hands in 2010, a 25% jump over the 295 sold in 2009. The total value of sold condos climbed 15% to $131 million from 2009's total of $114 million.

Single family transactions were also higher. Escrows closed on 72 homes worth nearly $62 million in 2010 compared with 62 homes transacted in 2009 valued at $50 million.

The median price of sold properties eased last year, 14% for condos ($279,750), and 6% for single family homes ($625,000). Of more interest, the percentage of sales attributed to motivated sellers of "distressed" real estate shot up. Bank owned properties (REO's), short sales and auctioned real estate constituted 36% of condos and 39% of sold homes in 2010.

The flow of distressed properties to the market can be erratic and their shelf life brief. For instance, REO's and short sale listings comprise only 9% of homes and 17% of condos currently listed. These bargains often fall quickly to nimble buyers who've scouted the market and know what they're after.  So while more troubled real estate assets are on the way, buyers should research the market, line up financing and enlist the aid of a REALTOR®.

MAMMOTH THANKSGIVING

La Nina winters like this one, characterized by cold water bunched up off the coast of Peru, are tricksters. They can be either cold and wet or cold and dry. They can come late and end early or arrive early and end late. Often they portend the formation of a blocking ridge of high pressure that forces systems north through Oregon, Washington and Canada. Or not.

A series of increasingly cold storms began Friday the 19th, and by Thursday the Mountain had recorded 7 feet. For the first Thanksgiving in 6 years all the lifts were operating.

We can rule out late. Now the weatherman thinks winter might end early.

THIRD QUARTER REAL ESTATE

If you're Glen Beck you're hoarding gold and lining up food insurance against the onrushing apocalypse. If you're Sara Palin you're stocking up on tea bags and counting the days until the next presidential election. But if you're hoping to buy or sell a piece of Mammoth real estate what do you do?

As reported earlier in The Flash condo and home sales both jumped in the first half of this year. Since most were purchased as second homes or investment properties the government tax rebates for primary residences bore little responsibility for this surge. Likewise, the cooling off of third quarter sales can not be blamed on the expiration of these tax incentives.

The number of condos sold rose less than 3% in the July to October quarter just ended over the same quarter in 2009, while the median condo price slumped 8.6% to $265,000. Condo transactions attributed to short sales or REO's surged from 19% in quarter three of '09 to 49% in this year's third quarter.

Eleven homes were sold in the third quarter of this year, off 52% from the 23 homes sold in the 3rd quarter of 2009. REO's held steady at about a fourth of homes sold in Mammoth.

Expectations of a continued stream of bank repossessions have been clouded by questions regarding the propriety of the foreclosure process. Attorney's general in all 50 states are investigating. Accounts of thousands of documents being signed by speed reading clerks in a single day suggests that vast numbers of foreclosures need to be reviewed, some rescinded. We'll know more about the flow of foreclosures in a few weeks. Stay tuned.

The Flash

COLLEGE KIDS

A number of years ago my wife Barbara and I sold our house, bought a motor home and hit the road. We worked our way slowly up the Pacific coast visiting friends, sightseeing and hanging out. It was July by the time we reached Washington and the silver salmon were running near the mouth of the Columbia. We holed up in a spartan campground near Ilwaco on the Washington side of  the river and I got outfitted with barrel bobbers, snelled hooks and frozen herring at a local tackle shop. The next day I caught a nice coho fishing off the large boulders of the Ilwaco jetty.

A week later  near the Canadian border I figured to get some final use out of my Washington state angler's license. Maybe slide our new canoe into one of the bays and pick up another salmon. So in the little town of Blaine I went looking for information at the only facsimile of a sporting goods store around, the Coast to Coast Hardware.

There was no one in the tackle section. No men around at all. Just two older women working on a Weed-Eater display. One was on an aluminum step-ladder struggling to hang the machine by heavy mono-filiment fishing line. I sidled up to her ladder.

"Excuse me, would you have any idea how the fishing has been?"

"Blanche?" she hollered over her shoulder.

Blanche reappeared from the storage room with a long handled framing hammer.

"Blanche, how's fishing been?"

Blanche passed the hammer up to Marge and sized me up. "What are you after?" She stepped right next to me as if trying to guess by my scent.

"Salmon, steelhead, sea run cutthroats. Whatever's in," I said backing away.

"Slow." She motioned for Marge to move her nail our farther and triangulate the suspension.

"They must be catching something," I prodded.

"There might be a few but it's slow. Real slow. Been slow all year."

"Well, what have they been using?"

"I don't think much of anything's been working, eh Marge?"

"How's this look?" Marge held the line out. Leaning. Precarious. I found myself holding onto the ladder.

"Fine," Blanche said. Then she turned back to me with a look that suggested only a peevish discussion could follow.

I pressed ahead. "Are there other tackle shops in town? Maybe someone's heard how it's been in the last few days." Suddenly the ladder flexed. Marge lashed out awkwardly with the long handled hammer, fanning on the nail and punching a clean hole in the ceiling. Drywall dust and chipped paint settled on my arm.

"Damn!"

"Don't worry about it. Try closer in"

Marge fished another nail from her teeth, held it at a comfortable distance and set it with a single temperate blow.

"Marge, anyone down to the marina know about fishing since Dave Gundarson's laid up?"

"Dave Gundarson? There's a human tragedy." Marge climbed down the ladder. She was older than I'd thought and her lipstick, Senior Citizen Red, scrawled two fantastic arches above her mouth like some garish entry to a 1940's tunnel of love. "Crabbing out on Lou Myrek's boat," she said out of the tunnel. "Some college kid on the winch. Didn't catch Dave 'til he was halfway through the pulley. Damn kid was probably asleep. Or even drunk."

"A real shame," Blanche said.

"Dave never got right."

"No, he's not right yet."

"College kids!"

"Mind or body."

"Like a crab himself now."

"Yes. All hunched over on that broken side."

"Don't blame him for drinking."

"I can't blame him."

"A real pity though. Never missed a day's work in all his life."

"Wife and kids run off to Texas. Back to her family, I guess."

"Never missed a day and never complained."

"Anyway, she couldn't stand it. And the two boys just barely along in grammar school."

"College kids!"

"No one deserves that. She should have stuck with her man."

"Come up on vacation with their daddies and think it'd be a lark to crew a boat."

Blanche looked at Marge. "Don't any of 'em know work or responsibility."

"Had it all handed."

"Hook, line and sinker."

"And bait."

"Especially bait."

The Weed-Eater hung there green and shiny and ready for action. It seemed out of  place in that rugged rural community with few lawns. The forest pushed right up to where salt grass and sand dunes meet the ocean. I thanked the ladies and headed out of the store. Blanche followed me. At the door I turned to nod goodbye.

"It's been slow here," she said in a distant thoughtful way. "Real slow."

SALES UP, INTEREST RATES DOWN, TAX CREDITS EVEN

New numbers from the National Association of Realtors seem to suggest that the US real estate market has turned the corner. Sales of homes and condos for April 2010 were 22.8% higher than for the same period last year while median prices rose in almost 60% of US metropolitan markets. Lawrence Yun, the frequently optimistic chief economist for the NAR said, "The housing price correction appears essentially over."

While admitting that April's strong numbers were likely influenced by an expiring $8000 Federal tax credit and acknowledging that "there will be some fallback" in the next few months, Yun cited near record low interest rates (around 5% for a 30 year fixed rate loan), growing buyer confidence and an improving economy in calling for a turnaround.

To counter the expiring Federal credit, California is offering $200 million in tax credits to first time buyers or buyers of new homes. The credit, up to $10,000 or 5% of the purchase price whichever is less, only apply to purchases of principal residences. Qualifying properties include condos, mobile homes, and single family residences but not homes constructed by taxpayers.

Still, mortgage delinquency rates continue to weigh on real estate price gains. Figures released by the Mortgage Bankers Association last week show that the number of delinquent mortgages across the country has not declined much in the last year. This could portend a steady stream of foreclosures.

In a news release the MBA's chief economist, Jay Brinkmann, offered tepid encouragement,"If mortgage delinquencies are not yet clearly improving, it also appears they are not getting worse." On the up side according to Brinkman, California's mortgage picture, once among the bleakest, is now getting brighter.