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)