As a real estate attorney, I watch the ups and downs of the Aspen real estate market with a certain detachment—clients come to us for advice on high-end transactions in Aspen regardless of market trends. But the recent, hand-wringing report in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that the Aspen real estate market was “sliding downhill” struck me as off base. 

Yes, Aspen had a bad snow year, and there was recently one high-profile, idiosyncratic mansion that sold at a fraction of what it had been listed for (for reasons unique to that property that should not surprise anyone familiar with the Aspen area and current market taste). So it's not surprising that there was a slight drop in sales volume in the first quarter of the year, with snowfall at record lows and fewer visitors in town. There was also news about the pending closure of the Aspen airport for construction (April 2027 – November 2027), which will make it slightly more difficult to get to Aspen, adding about 60-90 minutes to transit times from nearby Eagle airport, and the loss of some direct flights. 

Admittedly, the trend looks even worse than what was presented in the WSJ article if you look at year-to-year comparisons. For example, in the data prepared by local broker Tim Estin, you'll see a significant 39% drop in the number of Aspen home sales in H1 2026 as compared with H1 2025, and a 43% drop in year-to-date dollar sales over the same period. 

But if you look deeper at the data compiled by Estin, you will notice that these drops follow at least two years of remarkable increases in sales volume and revenue (35% and 25% increases each year since 2023), suggesting that this year's drop is more of a foreseeable correction after years of unsustainable growth, rather than the sign of a “downhill” market. Even the charts shared by the WSJ show that the general trend line over the last five years is generally flat, ever since the “COVID surge” that caused prices and sales to soar in 2021. Prices in Aspen still remain high, and have climbed every year since 2021. 

No one has a crystal ball, but short of a catastrophe like a wildfire or ski area shutdown, it seems unlikely to me that Aspen prices are likely to fall significantly, even in the event of a significant slowdown in sales volume. Why? Because if there is one thing that defines an Aspen real estate buyer, it's that they rarely need to sell. That unique ability of Aspen property owners to ride out market downturns—to hold, rather than fold—has insulated the Aspen market from many short-term disruptions in the past. For most of our clients, it's a long-term investment in paradise. 

It seems hard to believe a single bad snow year will change that.