February 7th, 2010
One of our Gold Medal Olympians was here in Squaw Valley…Julia Mancuso. She went through the Squaw Valley ski team and then onto the US Ski Team. After a great January of races, Julia decided to come home for a few days of training on her home mountain before heading off to Vancouver. Yesterday Julia skied a run with the Squaw Valley Mighty Mites. It was fun waiting at the “Big Tree” for Julia and all the teams to come down at the end of the day. Quite a sight as she lead a few hundred kids down the Sunny Side of the Mountain Run.

Julia Mancuso signing autographs for the Mighty Mites
Once at the tree, Julia was ready for the mob of kids asking for her autograph as parents gathered with cameras. In addition to the signings, Julia was selling sweatshirts she designed herself. This morning Julia was on Exhibition training slalom. What fun, especially for the local race teams, to have an Olympic athlete stop by so close to the Winter Games. We here at Lawrence Realty wish Julia the best for races in Vancouver.
Tags: Julia Mancuso, mighty mites, Skiing, Squaw Valley
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January 30th, 2010
Lifestyle is Squaw Valley. The reason so many of us play in Squaw Valley or live in Squaw Valley or have a vacation home in Squaw Valley is because of the lifestyle it provides. It goes without saying the terrain is great, the views are stunning and the weather is desireable pretty much year round. A day like today reminds why I love this valley. I rolled out of bed around 7:30am to the wonderful sound of little feet running and little voices saying good morning. We had breakfast, packed lunches and were in the member’s locker room by 8:30am getting ready to send our son off to Mighty Mites. The member’s locker room is something worth mentioning as it’s a place where people gather usually in good spirits to go do something they enjoy. You also see a few friendly faces on the way thru. Anyway after dropping our son off, we headed up the Funi and then to Broken Arrow for the overly announced opening of Silverado chairlift. To our excitement, few had made it there yet and we had a wonderful run in abou 8-10 inches of dense but fun powder. We zipped right onto the lift, no line, and headed up enjoying the show of people skiing and taking a few drops. Our second run we started just behind High Camp and enjoyed another mostly untracked run however this time we got to lift with everyone else and it was a bit of a mob scene, typical for the first day of Silverado. We headed off to the face of Headwall for our last run of a short ski morning.
So to recap, I was up at 7:30am, enjoyed many cheerful good mornings with friends and clients alike, had 3 great runs of skiing, came home to clean up and change and by 11:30am I was in Truckee bringing my 2 year daughter to a birthday party at one the communites fine resources My Playground. It is a great facility offering indoor gym and play for children of all ages. Anyway a nice party, then back to Squaw to pick up my little Mighty Mite. I have jsut finished off the afternoon working and now am heading to the hot tub with the family. So I played, Idid something for and with the kids and I worked, what a well balanced day. It’s so nice being here in the valley with the access to the mountain so convenient. I couldn’t have enjoyed this day the same way if not for living here. You just can’t beat the lifestyle of Squaw Valley.
Tags: Lifestyle, mighty mites, my playground, Skiing, Squaw Valley
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January 28th, 2010
We have not had financing available for hotel condo projects in Squaw Valley since the fall of 2008. This week one of the mortgage brokers that we work with finally found a lender who will loan on hotel condos at The Village at Squaw Valley. He is also working to get a lender to work with the Squaw Valley Lodge. He feels the Resort at Squaw Creek complex will take longer to get a lender willing to loan there but is working on it. This is good news and it will soon start to make listings in the Village at Squaw Valley begin to sell as buyers become able to get financing if they qualify. This will help to decrease the inventory and increase prices for the hotel condos in Squaw Valley.
Tags: hotel condos, Real Estate, Squaw Valley
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January 25th, 2010
Year to date, there have been four properties sell in Squaw Valley, one home and three condos. The single family home closed for $2.3M earlier this month. There are three hotel condo projects in Squaw Valley and each of those have one reported sale this year. In addition to the sales, there are three contingent condo sales and one contingent home sale. This is the type of real estate activity Squaw Valley is used to for mid winter. The continued interest in prospective buyers looking at real estate is a good sign of recovery. We look forward to this continued activity.
Tags: Real Estate, Squaw Valley
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January 22nd, 2010
The storms coming thru the Sierras in the last few days have made for excellent ski conditions. Most of the upper mountain was not open earlier this week, with a few openings yesterday. Today everything should have been open with only about 6-8 inches of snow fall overnight, but we stayed on KT and did laps. The line on Headwall was huge, the chair kept stopping and the wind was howling. The skiing on KT was great. Still places for an untracked turn here or there at 11am. The wind was smoothing out Oly Bowl and Chute 75 and the skied powder everywhere else was soft underfoot. What a great January of skiing. Enjoy the weekend.
Tags: Skiing, Squaw Valley
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January 19th, 2010
Great ski conditions at Squaw Valley especially since the storm systems are lined up. The storm over last night brought about 12 inches of snow. That combined with the blowing wind has made nice smooth, chalky skiing on the faces and powder in the bowls and for tree skiing. I enjoyed laps on Far East today while KT22 had a huge line. A lot of skiing in and around Poulsen’s Gully with patches of powder found in the trees. The upper mountain was closed today and with snow in the forecast all week, it may stay closed for awhile. It has been snowing lightly all day, and hopefully the forecast is right and the storm gets heavy again. Get your skis/boards and legs ready.
Tags: Skiing, Squaw Valley, weather
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January 14th, 2010
As I mentioned earlier, 2010 is off to a good start for Squaw Valley real estate. Yesterday we closed escrow on the first single family home sale of 2010 (transaction began late 2009). This was a fairly newly constructed home located on Sandy Way built by Dean and David Construction. Sales price $2.3M. With this sale closing and another home in escrow, Squaw Valley is already off to a better pace than last year.

First closed home sale of the new year!
Tags: Real Estate, Squaw Valley
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