Downward trend

Price slumps for real estate in ski resorts

Many property prices are currently falling in the local ski resorts.

(Bild: Christof Birbaumer)

Properties in local ski resorts are particularly expensive. For a long time, prices for residential property in St. Anton, Zell am See, Silvretta-Montafon or Katschberg only knew one way: up! Now, however, prices have plummeted by up to a third in some places.

Even if it is not necessarily the same everywhere, the price per square meter in Kitzbühel has also fallen by five percent. However, vacation homes and chalets continued to become more expensive.

Falling prices even in Kitzbühel
According to a comparison published by ImmoScout24 on Tuesday, the price of apartments and houses in the upmarket Tyrolean town fell from EUR 12,935 in 2023 to "only" EUR 12,338 in 2024. The Hahnenkamm race venue is listed by the platform as the most expensive ski resort in Austria. For the first time, a decrease has been recorded there. It is followed by St. Anton am Arlberg in this survey - where the price per square meter climbed by six percent to 10,628 euros.

Only a few places with price increases
Furthermore, prices have only risen in Schladming (up two percent to 8457 euros per square meter), Saalbach-Hinterglemm (up three percent to 8099 euros) and Bad Gastein (up 13 percent to 5459 euros). All other ski resorts surveyed by the online comparison platform recorded a drop. The drops in Hinterstoder (down 33 percent to 4257 euros), Nassfeld (down 30 percent to 4366 euros) and Katschberg (down 27 percent to 3989 euros) were the biggest in terms of proportion.

Further very high declines were recorded in Semmering, which is clearly the cheapest ski region in absolute terms after Katschberg (down 17% to EUR 1995). However, even heavily frequented tourist resorts in the west such as Ischgl (down 16 percent to 7988 euros) Silvretta Montafon (down 15 percent to 4887 euros), Kaprun/Zell am See (down nine percent to 6835 euros), Alpbachtal (down eight percent to 6243 euros), Zillertal (down eight percent to 6111 euros) and Sölden (down five percent to 6125 euros) became slightly cheaper.

Prices for vacation homes and chalets continue to rise
However, when looking at prices for vacation homes and chalets in the ski resorts alone, it is noticeable that costs are falling - or continuing to rise - to a much lesser extent. Here too, Kitzbühel continues to lead the rankings at EUR 18,617 per square meter (up three percent). However, regions such as Bad Gastein (up 43 percent, 5182 euros/square meter), Silvretta Montafon (up 22 percent, 5210 euros) and Nassfeld (up 18 percent, 2808 euros) also recorded strong increases. The Kaprun/Zell am See region (up eleven percent, 6447 euros), Schladming (up ten percent, 6560 euros), Alpbachtal (up nine percent, 6123 euros) and Hinterstoder (up five percent, 2771 euros) followed behind.