The Aspen commercial real estate market remains strong and stable, notching another solid year in 2019. Like much of the rest of the overall real estate market, numbers were hovering close to 2018.
Two recent sales of office properties caught the eye of local appraiser Randy Gold, however. Both purchases, for office space at around $2,700 per square foot, were made by billionaires who own homes within walking distance.
That led Gold, speaking to over 300 people in the St. Regis ballroom at Thursday’s Annual Market Update Luncheon presented by the Aspen Board of Realtors, to identify what he sees as a new phenomena in the local real estate scene. Coining the phrase “hobby officers” to laughter from the crowd, he described them as emblematic of the influence a growing number of billionaire buyers are having on local real estate.