美国的富豪们奢侈习惯难改

It's a glorious day for spring skiing in the Colorado Rockies.

And at lunchtime in Vail Village, blinded by the sun and snow, you barely notice the usual suspects - the teenage snowboarders, wealthy Latinas in fur coats and Caribbean nannies with babies in strollers.

But here's one thing you do notice: construction workers. Dozens of them - small crowds of fluorescent yellow vests and white hardhats - on the streets and in the scaffolding - putting up hundreds of new units for Vail's luxury condo market.

Across America, high-end real estate is in a deep funk. The asking price for William F. Buckley's Park Avenue duplex was just cut by more than half to $12 million.

But in this resort town of less than 5,000 full-time residents, developers are putting the finishing touches on a new Four Seasons hotel and 'residence', a new Ritz-Carlton 'residence' as well as Solaris, a huge new mixed-use development.

That's 229 pricey new 'residences,' marketing-speak for 'expensive vacation condos.' The 6,500 square foot penthouse at the Solaris will run you $19.5 million. At the Ritz-Carlton, a three bedroom is a mere $3.6 million. Then again, the Ritz backs onto the frontage road of busy Interstate-70.

In all, it's more than $1 billion in new real estate inventory for Vail. And there's not a snowball's chance in hell, most of this inventory will be moved anytime soon.

But for a one-of-a-kind world-class resort like Vail, it may not matter. Judging from my family's recent trip there, old habits like expensive vacations and real estate speculation die hard for America's well-to-do.

Certainly, the stock market has great faith in the rich. Over the past year, Tiffany's shares are up 120%, Sotheby's, up 250%. No big surprise then that the shares of publicly-traded Vail Resorts are up 100%. Luxury goods, luxury sports and luxury real estate make for a tidy package of good old-fashioned American materialism.

Of course, Vail isn't immune from our nation's economic woes. The post-Lehman winter season was a bad one for America's ski resorts. And this year all the overpriced eateries on Vail Mountain were flogging a $9.95 'lunch for less' special.

But really, once you've spent thousands to get you and your family atop that mountain, lunch is a mere rounding error. I go ahead and buy the $3.50 Gatorade just to complain about it.

This is how a pricey place like Vail Valley gets you. Our family has skied here for the last eight years. And if you love skiing as we do, Vail is near nirvana - 5,289 acres of beautiful wooded and open ski terrain. A $98 daily lift ticket seems a small price to pay for the happiness of skiing fresh powder in its magical Back Bowls.

So it's easy to see why we and other well-to-do families come back year after year. And it's also easy to see how America's rich can mix up their love for skiing with their love for real estate speculation.

Last week after dinner, I was walking with a friend through the village, explaining to him how the real estate bubble had burst in Vail.

High-end properties had gone from $1,000 a square foot in 2003 to a peak of $3,000 in 2008 back down to $2,000 today. 'That's a big drop,' I said.

But, here my friend interrupted, 'Why do you look at the decline? The better question is: Why are prices still double what they were in 2003?'

An excellent point. How could I have missed it? The stock market certainly isn't up 100% over the past seven years. So what says that luxury real estate, be it in the Hamptons or Aspen or Vail, should still be up two-fold?

Consider the following: The Vail Ritz-Carlton is pricing a new 3,091 sq. foot condo at $5.965 million. That works out to $1,930 a foot - which is actually higher than the average prices paid in Manhattan's luxury apartment market.

And it's for a second or third home in the mountains crammed next to I-70!

Amortize the Ritz condo's all-in cost over the days it's in use and you'll get numbers of $10,000 a night for the privilege of sleeping in your own bed. That same money will get you the finest hotel suite in Vail plus a few dozen daily lift tickets.

Such crazy, almost senseless economics can mean one of two things. Either America's well-to-do can't shake the real estate bubble mindset. Or enough of them are so rich, they just don't care about the money.

If the stock market continues to spiral higher, we may never learn which explanation is truer. Unless of course, Vail's developers can't unload the new luxury 'residences' and start slashing prices.

Vail may tout itself as 'Like nothing on earth.' But that doesn't mean it isn't subject to the basic economic laws of the rest of our planet.