Updates from Sally Shiekman

I recently spent money on something that might have been completely ridiculous. They say you waste half of every marketing budget — you just never know which half. So this time, I decided to find out.

I hired musicians from the Aspen Music Festival to play classical music at an open house.

The home is 990 E. Hopkins — one of only four residences in a quiet riverfront enclave, with the Roaring Fork River on one side and Aspen Mountain on the other, and a rooftop deck built for a hot tub and views in every direction. At $16 million, it's built for someone who already loves the rhythm of an Aspen summer — the kind of person who spends evenings under the Music Tent before coming home to views like this home provides. Bringing musicians into a house built for exactly that life wasn't a stretch. It was the whole idea.

So I took out a full-page ad in the music festival program. I had it catered with delicious food. I invited everyone I could think of — and people walked through that door who never would have found this listing otherwise.

Here's the truth about real estate, and honestly about business in general: it's a gamble, every time. But Aspen makes the bet feel a little more romantic. The river sings. The mountain shows off. And every summer we're spoiled for choice — the Aspen Music Festival, JAS Aspen Snowmass, the Aspen Ideas Festival, nights at the Belly Up, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, evenings at the Wheeler. Weekly free valley-wide outdoor concerts. 

Try pricing any of that into a per-square-foot number. You can't. Out of context, our prices rarely make sense. In context, they're the whole story.

Was the gamble worth it? Ask me again once this one closes. It's all about matching the right buyer with the right property. For this property, I'd do it again tomorrow.

If you'd like a private tour of 990 E. Hopkins Avenue — music optional — I'd love to show it to you.

*Mountains of Experience*
Sally Shiekman | 970-948-7530 | SallyShiekman.com | 990EHopkinsAve.com
 

I get this question often, usually from a client sitting across the table from me who just watched a headline scroll by about tax reform in Washington. There's a flicker of worry in it — like they could potentially miss their window.

So let me give you the same answer I give them: no, the 1031 exchange isn't disappearing. It's been part of the tax code for over a hundred years, and it's weathered more reform cycles than most of us have owned property. What's worth your attention isn't the rumor. It's the details.

Why This Keeps Coming Up

Section 1031 gets pulled into budget conversations in Washington fairly often, and for a simple reason — when investors defer capital gains taxes through an exchange, that deferral shows up in federal revenue projections. So every time Congress builds a large tax package, someone floats the idea of capping it or narrowing it as a way to help pay for something else. Most of those proposals never make it into law. But they make headlines, and headlines make clients nervous.

What Actually Changed

The real shift happened back in 2018, with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Before that, you could 1031 exchange more than real estate — equipment, artwork, even cattle. The TCJA narrowed that down to real property only. Investment real estate, commercial property, multifamily, rental homes, land held for investment — all of that is still eligible. It just tightened the lane rather than closing the road.

If you're doing business across state lines, there's also California's "claw back" rule to be aware of — if you exchange out of California property and later sell the replacement elsewhere, the state wants you to report that, and there's potential for previously deferred gains to come back into the picture. It's a state-level nuance, not a threat to the exchange itself, but it's exactly the kind of detail that trips people up if nobody mentions it early.

What's on the Radar for 2026

The one piece of legislation actually worth watching right now isn't a 1031 bill at all — it's the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which the Senate passed in March. It targets large institutional investors, aiming to limit their ability to buy up single-family homes, with the broader goal of easing housing prices. It doesn't touch Section 1031 directly. But policy like this has a way of rippling into the market — shifting who's buying, how much inventory moves, and how sellers time their decisions. That's worth watching even if it never lands on your exchange paperwork.

The Real Lesson: Partial Exchanges Happen, and That's Okay

Not every exchange needs to defer a hundred percent of the gain, and I think this gets lost in all the noise about reform. Sometimes a client wants some cash out of a sale, or they're moving into a replacement property with a smaller mortgage than the one they're leaving behind. Either of those creates what's called "boot" — and boot is simply the portion of the transaction that doesn't qualify as like-kind. It's taxable, but it isn't a failure. It's a choice.

If full deferral is the goal, there are two things that have to happen: every dollar of net equity gets reinvested, and the replacement property carries equal or greater debt than the property you sold (or you make up the difference with cash). Miss either one, and you'll owe something — which, again, isn't necessarily wrong for your situation. It just needs to be planned for, not discovered after closing.

Why the Clock Matters More Here Than Most Places

This is the part I really want clients to sit with, because it's specific to where we live. A 1031 exchange gives you 45 days from your closing to identify replacement properties, and 180 days to close on one of them. Both deadlines are firm — the IRS doesn't grant extensions for a slow ski season, delays in new construction or a property that "almost" worked out.

In most markets, that's a manageable window. In Aspen and Snowmass, it can be the whole ballgame. Inventory here has run roughly 40% below pre-pandemic levels for some time now, and even with transaction volume cooling off some this year, well-positioned properties still don't sit long. If you're thirty days into your identification period and the handful of properties that fit your criteria have already gone under contract, you're not just frustrated — you're at risk of losing the deferral entirely. I've watched it happen. It's the single most avoidable mistake I see.

My advice, every time: start looking before you list or go under contract, not after you close.

Where I Land On All This

Reform talk isn't new, and it isn't going away either — I expect we'll keep hearing about it every time there's a big tax bill in Washington. What I tell my clients is this: don't let a headline dictate your timeline. Talk to your tax advisor, understand what a partial exchange might mean for your specific numbers, and give yourself the runway to plan properly rather than reacting to news that may never become law.

That runway matters especially here, where the right replacement property might take longer to surface than your 45 days allow. If you're weighing a sale up here in the Roaring Fork Valley and wondering how a 1031 exchange fits into your plans, I'm always glad to talk it through — early, before the clock starts.

Let me put my Mountains of Experience to work for you.

Sally Shiekman | Aspen Snowmass Sotheby's International Realty
970-948-7530 | sally@sallyshiekman.com | SallyShiekman.com

This post is for general informational purposes and isn't tax or legal advice. Every situation is different — please consult your own tax and legal advisors before making any decisions about a 1031 exchange.
Sources: Asset Preservation, Inc., "Partial Exchanges"; First American Exchange Company, "The Future of 1031 Exchanges in 2026: What Investors Need to Know" (firstexchange.com)
 

There's a reason the Fourth of July feels different here.

For so many of the people I work with, Independence Day is the moment they finally exhale. The calendar clears. The mountains are green. The air is thin and clean, warm in the sun and cool in the shade. And for one long weekend, the only thing on the schedule is freedom — the unhurried kind.

In an earlier piece, I wrote about why the Fourth is the holiday that makes people dream of escaping to the mountains. I want to take that a step further now, because once people start dreaming seriously, they almost always ask me the same question: If I'm going to put down roots in a mountain town, why Aspen, Snowmass or the Roaring Fork Valley — and not somewhere else?

It's a fair question. Park City, Whistler, and Vail are beautiful places. So I'll answer it honestly.

A FOURTH OF JULY LIKE NO OTHER — ESPECIALLY THIS YEAR

This year the Fourth carries even more weight. Aspen is marking both the 250th anniversary of the United States and the 150th anniversary of Colorado, and the city is celebrating accordingly: a two-day carnival in Rio Grande Park with a 65-foot Ferris wheel, rides, games, and food, a July 3rd concert, the traditional world-renowned Fourth of July parade, and a drone show lighting up the night sky.

But the spectacle isn't really the point. Holidays are a kind of stress test for a town — they reveal what a community actually values when everyone shows up at once. Spend the Fourth in the Roaring Fork Valley and you'll feel it. The parade still feels like a small-town parade, not a tourist event. The rivers are running, the trails are open, and you can fill an entire day with hiking, biking, paddling, or doing absolutely nothing on a deck with a view of the Continental Divide.

What you won't feel is the sense that the place has been paved over to hold as many people as possible. And that's not an accident. That’s the whole point.

Click this link to see all the City of Aspen Special Events

ASPEN PROTECTS WHAT MAKES IT ASPEN

Here's the difference most people don't fully appreciate until they've owned property in more than one mountain town.

Aspen holds some of the strictest building and preservation standards of any resort community in the country. The city was one of the first in Colorado to formally protect its historic character, and it now safeguards more than 300 historic resources. Most exterior work — and even some interior work — must pass through design review before a single nail goes in. Building heights are tightly capped. Mountain viewplane protections keep the ridgelines you love from being walled off by the next development. There are rules governing site grading, tree preservation, snow storage, even a neighbor's access to sunlight.

The valley goes further still. Pitkin County's growth-management system limits how much new residential square footage can even be built in a year — by design, to protect the land, the water, and the feel of the place. Not long ago the city paused certain residential building permits entirely, simply to think carefully about the pace and scale of development.

To a developer, that sounds like friction. To an owner, it sounds like protection.

Because here's what those rules actually buy you: the view you paid for stays the view you paid for. The character of your street doesn't change overnight. The mountain remains the hero. Scarcity here isn't a marketing word — it's written into the code.

HOW OTHER WONDERFUL TOWNS COMPARE

I want to be fair, because these are genuinely lovely places.

Park City offers easy access and a great deal of new condo inventory, which suits a certain kind of buyer well. But abundant new inventory is precisely the trade-off — more supply, more density, more building. A different bargain than the one Aspen offers.

Whistler is spectacular and world-class on the mountain. It is also in another country, with the currency, cross-border, and travel realities that come with owning abroad.

Vail sits closer to Denver and is beautifully run, but its village was master-planned and built to scale around volume. It's a marvelous machine. Aspen, by contrast, is a town that grew up around a mountain and then chose — deliberately — to stop growing the way other towns kept growing.

None of these are wrong choices. They're simply different ones. The real question is which trade-off you want to live inside of for the next twenty years.

FREEDOM, WITH ROOM TO BREATHE

There's a particular kind of freedom that comes from open space protected on purpose. From knowing your slice of the valley won't be crowded out. From a town that treats its land and its history as something to be respected rather than maximized.

That's the version of Independence Day I love most here. Not the carnival or the drone show, lovely as they are — but the deeper feeling underneath them: room to breathe, in a place that fought to keep it that way.

The Fourth of July is the perfect example of why there is nothing else quite like Aspen Snowmass and the Roaring Fork Valley. It's a holiday about freedom, celebrated in a place that understood early, and on purpose, that real freedom needs something worth protecting.

If this is the year you stop dreaming about it and start thinking seriously about putting down roots, I'd love to help you find the right place — and help you understand exactly what makes ownership here different.

Let me put my Mountains of Experience to work for you.

Sally Shiekman
970-948-7530
SallyShiekman.com

People ask me this question constantly right now, and I appreciate that they do — because it tells me they're paying attention. The short answer is: yes, in some ways the market has softened. Year-to-date through the first week of June, Aspen recorded 57 closed residential sales versus 81 over the same period in 2025 — a 30% drop in transaction count and roughly 45% decline in dollar volume ($536M vs. $983M). But "softening" in Aspen means something very different than it does anywhere else, and conflating the two would be a mistake that could cost buyers and sellers alike.

Let me give you the data first. Q1 2026 recorded the lowest first-quarter sales volume since 2020. March closed sales in Aspen fell 50% year-over-year — from 24 transactions in March 2025 to just 12 this year. Snowmass Village dropped 46%, from 13 closings to 7. Active inventory has climbed to around 158 listings, with roughly 9.4 months of supply, and homes are now selling at approximately 90.77% of asking price — a meaningful shift from the frenzied post-pandemic years when sellers held all the cards. Days on market for condos have extended to 115–155 days in some segments. These are real changes, and I won't minimize them.

What I will push back on is the narrative that this signals structural weakness. The 2025 market was extraordinary by any measure — $2.509 billion in total Aspen and Snowmass dollar volume, 42 sales above $20 million (up 62% from 2024), and a single-family median in Aspen of $17.5 million, up 31% in a single year. Comparing 2026 to that baseline is like measuring a normal winter against the historic 2022–23 snowfall and calling it a drought. And the longer view backs that up: average sold price per square foot YTD sits around $3,233, down roughly 9% from last year's $3,554 — but the 10-year average annual appreciation rate for Aspen remains 10–11%, and the 5-year compounded annual growth rate is near 13%. A single soft year against a decade of double-digit compounding is not a trend reversal; it's a pause. Several converging headwinds hit simultaneously: a record-low snow year in January and February dampened the buyer energy that typically arrives with ski season; tariff uncertainty and Federal Reserve volatility created hesitation at the top of the market; and frankly, some buyers are beginning to push back on pricing that accelerated faster than fundamentals alone would justify. These are cyclical pressures, not structural ones.

What hasn't changed is the foundation. Pitkin County unemployment sits at just 2.3%. Inventory — while rising — remains roughly 40% below pre-pandemic 2019 levels. The ultra-high end isn't just active — it's making headlines. Media mogul Byron Allen just paid $91.3 million for a Red Mountain estate, in an off-market deal that wasn't even publicly listed. That's on top of three other $30M+ closings already this year, including a $42M McLain Flats sale and a $37M Red Mountain trade. Buyers with real capital aren't waiting for a "better moment" — they're moving now, off-market, on their own terms. The "billionaire effect" hasn't disappeared; it's simply moving at a more measured cadence. Down-valley, Basalt and Carbondale are telling their own stories — Basalt single-family saw a 65% jump in median price in January, and Carbondale's condo market is seeing compressed inventory at just 1.8 months of supply, suggesting that the broader Roaring Fork Valley remains a target for buyers who want proximity to Aspen at comparatively accessible price points.

One more number worth sharing, because it speaks to who you want in your corner in a market like this: Aspen Snowmass Sotheby's International Realty's share of Aspen's residential dollar volume has climbed to nearly 33% year-to-date, up from 19% a year ago — more than double our closest competitor. In a slower market, every transaction matters more, and that gap reflects depth of relationships and local expertise, not luck.

My read: this is a recalibration, not a retreat. For sellers, it means pricing discipline matters more than it has in years — overpriced listings are sitting, and the market is telling you clearly when you've missed the mark. For buyers, the window of selectivity you now have is genuinely new. You have options you didn't have in 2022 or 2023, and that's worth something. But I wouldn't confuse increased negotiability with an impending correction. The long-term thesis for Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley — four world-class mountains, the Ideas Festival, the Music Festival, a globally recognized lifestyle, and a supply of land that simply cannot expand — remains as compelling as it has ever been.

There's also a sentiment shift I'm hearing across the brokerage that's worth mentioning, even if it's anecdotal rather than statistical: a number of agents believe this summer is shaping up to be busy. The theory is that many buyers simply sat out a lackluster ski season — low snow, high rates, a noisy macro backdrop — and are now eager to spend real time in Aspen once the weather turns. We won't know if that pans out until the numbers are in, but it's a reasonable read of a market that's pausing rather than retreating.

Here's the truth I keep coming back to: in Aspen, Snowmass, and the Roaring Fork Valley, in up markets and in down, the differentiator isn't economics. It's Mother Nature.

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*Sally Shiekman is a Senior Partner at Aspen Snowmass Sotheby's International Realty with decades of experience representing buyers and sellers across Aspen, Snowmass Village, and the Roaring Fork Valley. Let me put my Mountains of Experience to work for you.*

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### Sources

1. **Aspen Times** — "Aspen Snowmass real estate market update shows sales 'fell sharply' in 2026" (April 8, 2026)
   aspentimes.com/news/aspen-snowmass-real-estate-market-update-shows-sales-fell-sharply-in-2026

2. **Christie's International Real Estate Aspen Snowmass** — First Quarter 2026 Aspen Snowmass Market Report, analysis by Dr. Elliot Eisenberg (April 21, 2026)
   christiesaspenre.com/first-quarter-2026-aspen-snowmass-market-report

3. **Houzeo** — Aspen, CO Housing Market in 2026: Home Prices & Trends
   houzeo.com/housing-market/colorado/aspen

4. **Hudson Smythe** — Aspen Real Estate Market Report: January 2026 Analysis
   hudsonsmythe.com/blog/aspen-market-report-january-2026

5. **Estin Report (Tim Estin, Aspen Snowmass Sotheby's)** — Q1 & March 2026 Aspen Snowmass Real Estate Market Snapshot
   estinaspen.com/real-estate-market/q1_mar-2026-aspen-snowmass-report

A recent Fortune magazine piece stopped me in my tracks this week. A veteran broker turned tech founder wrote candidly about what he calls the housing market's "nepo problem" — the quiet but accelerating reality that the buyers who win are increasingly the buyers with family money behind them. He framed it as a crisis. I understand why. But after three decades in this valley, I've seen a more nuanced story play out — one where family money, used wisely in the right market, can be one of the smartest investments a family ever makes together.

I've helped a lot of first-time buyers close here with a financial lift from parents or grandparents. And I'll tell you what I've watched happen almost every single time: it works. Not just for the buyer — for the whole family. The returns on real estate in the Roaring Fork Valley have historically been extraordinary. The equity builds. The asset appreciates. And when those buyers come back to me a second time — and they do come back — they've paid their families back, they're standing on their own, and they're ready to move up. What started as a family loan becomes a family legacy. That's not a nepo problem. That's generational wealth building in real time.

What the Fortune piece gets right is that Aspen is genuinely hard to justify on paper for a first-time buyer. The transaction costs alone — closing, title, inspection, appraisal — can reach six figures before a single mortgage payment is made. That's not a mortgage problem. That's a liquidity problem. And in a valley where teachers, ski instructors, and longtime locals are competing for a shrinking slice of attainable inventory in Carbondale, Basalt, and El Jebel, that gap is real and it's growing. Family money doesn't solve the systemic problem. But for the families who have it and choose to deploy it here, it can be the foothold that grows into a foothold for life.

That's the phrase I keep coming back to — a foothold for life. Aspen isn't just a place to live. It's the Aspen Music Festival and the Aspen Ideas Festival. It's skiing four mountains in a single week. It's the Roaring Fork River out your back window and a community that has drawn extraordinary people for generations. Real estate values here reflect all of that, and they always have. The families who committed early — who found a way to get in even when it felt like a stretch — have been rewarded in ways that compounded far beyond the initial leap of faith.

My job, in part, is helping buyers and their families understand that leap clearly — what it costs to get to the table, what the realistic return trajectory looks like, and how to structure a purchase that works for everyone involved. I've had those conversations around a lot of kitchen tables, and they rarely end in regret.

If you or someone you love is trying to find a way into this market for the first time, let's talk. The valley still has entry points worth finding — but you need someone who knows where to look.

Let me put my Mountains of Experience to work for you.
 

Aspen has always offered something rare: the ability to live at the intersection of innovation and intimacy. It is one of the few places in the world where founders, investors, artists, and global leaders can move from strategy calls and major deals to mountain trails, concerts, community events, and family time in the same day. That balance is part of what makes Aspen so magnetic. It is not just beautiful. It is deeply livable.

That appeal continues to show up at the highest levels of the market. In late 2025, Palantir CEO Alex Karp purchased the former St. Benedict’s Monastery property near Aspen for $120 million, a sale widely reported as a record residential transaction for Pitkin County. The property spans more than 3,700 acres and reflects exactly the kind of rarity that draws visionary buyers here: privacy, scale, history, natural beauty, and close proximity to one of the most culturally rich mountain communities in the country.

What is so compelling about Aspen for high-achieving owners is that it does not ask them to choose between ambition and quality of life. Here, you can be in the clouds and in the mountains at the same time. You can stay connected to global business, technology, and culture while still living in a place that feels grounded, personal, and inspiring. That duality has become one of Aspen’s greatest luxuries.

And Aspen keeps investing in the kind of experiences that reinforce that sense of connection. This year, the city is moving forward with plans for an expanded July 4th celebration including a two-day carnival in Rio Grande Park with a 65-foot Ferris wheel, rides, games, and food concessions. The event is intended to celebrate both the 250th anniversary of the United States and the 150th anniversary of Colorado, with the city also planning a July 3rd concert, the traditional world-renowned Fourth of July parade, and a drone show in lieu of fireworks.

That matters because buyers at this level are not simply purchasing square footage. They are investing in belonging. They want a place where modern life works seamlessly, but where tradition, community, and memory still matter. They want a market with long-term strength, but also a town that knows how to celebrate. Aspen delivers both.

In a world that is increasingly digital, Aspen remains refreshingly human. That may be exactly why it continues to attract owners who can live anywhere but choose to be here.

When you put the Sotheby’s International Realty 2026 Luxury Outlook next to Sotheby’s 2025 Aspen/Snowmass real estate market recap, the vision sharpens: luxury real estate isn’t following the same rules as the broader market—and our backyard keeps behaving like a category of one. The Luxury Outlook calls it “two markets,” and that distinction matters because affluent buyers are less constrained by geography, financing friction, or headline noise. (Elevated Living)

Here’s the local proof: Aspen basically repeated 2024 in transaction count—about 185 total sales—yet still produced over $2B in volume. Condo pricing remained elevated (near a $6M average), and price-per-square-foot continued to inch upward even as growth moderated. That matches what many of us felt in the trenches: fewer “panic bids,” more discipline, but still real demand for scarce, high-quality inventory. (Elevated Living)

One of my favorite takeaways from the Luxury Outlook is the “first mover advantage”—a polite way of saying: the first seller to price like a grown-up usually wins. (Elevated Living) Aspen Sotheby’s statistics reinforce why: in Aspen, sellers held decent leverage, but discounts averaged around 6% with a wide spread—meaning pricing and positioning are now the difference between “clean close” and “long winter.” And yes, Aspen and The Roaring Fork Valley flag the same areas many of us are watching: $25M+ single-family inventory can get heavy fast if pricing drifts. (Elevated Living)

Zoom out, and the third-party data supports the broader tailwinds our regional statistics point to. International demand is rebounding: the National Association of REALTORS® reports international buyers purchased 78,100 U.S. homes from April 2024–March 2025, up 44% year-over-year. (National Association of REALTORS®) That matters here, because Aspen/Snowmass is a global lifestyle market—buyers comparison-shop stability, safety, and long-term scarcity.

And the definition of “luxury” keeps moving up—another reason our “normal” can feel surreal to outsiders. Realtor.com notes that in 2025 an “entry-level” luxury home (top 10% of listings) is around $1.3M nationally—nearly triple the national median list price. (Realtor) In other words: the luxury lane is widening everywhere, but the top of the top is where our market lives—especially with Snowmass’s Base Village cycle continuing to reshape buyer expectations and pricing benchmarks. (Business Insider)

My takeaway for clients (and for us): 2026 is likely to reward clarity. Price correctly, move decisively when the right opportunity appears, and remember that scarcity + lifestyle demand is still a powerful combination in Aspen Snowmass—especially when global buyers are back in motion. (National Association of REALTORS®)

If you’d like to discuss the Aspen/Snowmass real estate market, what your property’s value may be or what the currently available options are in your price range, please call me at 970-948-7530 or send an email to Sally@SallyShiekman.com to arrange a time. Let me put my mountains of experience to work for you!