Mason Morse Blog


Archive for March, 2010
Mason Morse Broker, Bryan Peterson, shares NBC interview of Heath Calhoun

Bryan Peterson reports on his travels and coaching at the Vancouver Paralympic Winter Games.


The following article is related to an interview with Heath Calhoun. He trains with Challenge Aspen during the winter. Amazing person and athlete. He lost his legs in Iraq.


Challenge Aspen is an organization in Aspen dedicated to impacting lives by presenting meaningful recreational, cultural and competitive experiences to individuals faced with cognitive or physical challenges. Learn more at http://www.challengeaspen.org/index.cfm


Iraq vet chases gold for the red, white and blue

March 12: The first wounded Iraq war veteran to compete in the Paralympic Winter Games, alpine skier Heath Calhoun, will carry the flag for the US Paralympic Team at the upcoming opening ceremonies. NBC’s Peter Alexander reports.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/vp/35844514#35844514


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Broker Bryan Peterson reports on Vancouver Paralympic Games

Bryan Peterson, a broker with Mason Morse in Aspen, has been selected as a Coach for the Paralympic Team in Vancouver in March 2010. While there, Bryan’s agreed to be a correspondent on the latest happenings and keep us up to date.

Bryan Peterson, Slalom training in the fog.

From Bryan Peterson:

All the athletes, staff, and coaches, from all the countries involved in alpine or cross country are staying in the athlete village a few miles from Whistler Village where the alpine events are being held. The athletes and staff involved in curling and sledge hockey are staying in the Vancouver athlete village.


Opening ceremonies were Friday night in Vancouver at the same stadium we all saw the Olympic ceremonies on television. It holds around 60,000, and it was sold out for the Paralympic opening ceremonies as well. Pretty amazing! The host country and all the Canadians in general are very welcoming, always smiling, and simply fun to be around. It’s a “huge” and exciting event (to give an example: opening ceremonies for the Paralympics in Salt Lake, 2002, had more people attending than the Olympics).


We arrived on March 7th and had two days to get organized prior to downhill training which started on March 10. We recieved approximately 3 feet of snow Thursday and Friday (downhill training was cancelled), and due to fog or low hanging cloud cover, were not able to hold the downhill race Saturday. It’s been rescheduled for next Thursday. Due to of all the snow in past days and in the forecast, it was decided to move all the technical events up to today through Wednesday (slalom and giant slalom). Then we’ll race the speed events Thursday through next Saturday, with the Super Combined as the last event on Sunday (a race with one run of super G and one run of slalom, combined time).

There are three catagories of athletes: visually impaired (they ski with a guide), sitting (monoskiers, comprised of athletes without the ability to race standing up or us their lower extremeties), and standing (comprised of athletes who don’t have an arm, or have only one leg,…… and those who may have a genetic physical challenge like cerebral palsy….).


You will also find photos of athletes in events, and other photos of all the happenings and environment at: http://www.vancouver2010.com/paralympic-games/photos/allparaphotosgallery_170524cf-p2-GQ.html


People can view all the Paralympic events either live or click on the links for previous events to watch them again. www.paralympicsport.tv (Including opening ceremonies).


Best,

Bryan


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The Estin Report: Buyers Take Note of Seller’s ‘End of Season’ Motivation

If you missed these, here are some recent Aspen real estate article links (archived in the Aspen Real Estate Archives Section of www.EstinAspen.com):

* Mar 10-16, 2010, Snowmass Sun, “Looking for Positives in Snowmass Real Estate”

* March 8, 2010 ADN: “Fractionals Down, Residential Real Estate Sales Up Slightly in Jan & Feb”

* March 4, 2010 ADN: “Aspen Survey Shows Rising Confidence in Local Real Estate & Business”

For Prospective Buyers: There is a common refrain in the market right now which goes something like this, “Sellers are facing the end of the season and looking at a big gap of non-activity during the off-season and continued uncertainty regarding the reality of a budding national and local economic recovery. It would seem these sellers would be a lot more motivated now to get a deal done than have to hang onto inventory (and carrying costs) through the off-season and face an uncertain summer.”

This is especially true in Snowmass where activity will come to an abrupt end when the ski mountain closes, and in all reality, won’t pick up again until next winter 2010/2011. Winter is the selling season in Snowmass Village: summer is very quiet.

There’s a feeling that once – or if ? – sellers make it through the spring without selling, they’ll feel stronger – they made it through the worst – and therefore perhaps more emboldened to hold to their prices this summer…” . Without meaning this to sound like ‘brokerspeak’, the suggestion is that the best time for a buyer to strike may be now. But…then again … there’s also sentiment saying that “prices could still go lower” but there does seem to be almost universal local concurrence that the big price hits have already been factored into the marketplace and that more price decreases may be incremental, not significant.

Here is this past week, March 7 – 14, 2010,  Aspen and Snowmass Village real estate sales activity for all property types over $250,000 excluding fractionals. For other weekly period activity, see Tim Estin’s regular weekly blog posts  on ”Aspen Snowmass Real Estate Activity”.

> Closed (0): There were no closings this past week.
> Under Contract/Pending (6): MLS#’s 111639, 113338,109509, 114703, 111770, 104357, Link will expire in 30 days. Valid until4/13/2010. Breakdown: (2) Aspen single family homes – Red Mountain and West End, (1) Old Snowmass home, (1) Aspen condo, (1) Aspen Highlands condo and (1) Aspen/Cemetery Ln Duplex.

Disclaimer: The statements made in The Estin Report and on Tim Estin’s blog represent the opinions of the author, not Mason Morse Real Estate, and should not be relied upon  exclusively to make real estate decisions. A potential buyer and/or seller is advised to make an independent investigation of the market and ofeach property before deciding to purchase or to sell. To the extent the statements made herein report facts or conclusions taken from other sources,the information is believed by the author to be reliable, however, the author makes no guarantee concerning the accuracy of the facts and conclusions reported herein. Information concerning particular real estate opportunities can be requested from Tim Estin at 970.920.7387 or at testin@masonmorse.com. The Estin Report is copyrighted 2010 and all rights reserved. Use is permitted subject to the following attribution:”The Estin Report: State of the Aspen Market, By Tim Estin, mba, gri, www.EstinAspen.com”

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