Developer. Skier. Builder of things that last. I write about real estate, resort development, and the mountains that keep me honest. Operator-first takes from the slopes to the job site. Let’s build something.
Colorado renters now need $36.44 an hour to afford a two bedroom apartment while the state minimum sits at $15.36, and the counties driving that gap are Summit, Eagle, and Pitkin, the same three that keep the lifts running.
Private capital is pouring hundreds of millions into ski country real estate. Workforce housing is still an afterthought, and Breckenridge is the exception that proves it.
Last week, a Connecticut ski area made snow to Dolly Parton. That sentence alone tells you something has changed. View this reel on Instagram Mount Southington announced it has acquired a new TechnoAlpin SnowFactory, a machine that manufactures snow regardless of what the thermometer says outside, and marked the occasion
My father and I spent the day today with Erik Mogensen, his fiancée, Ashley Cunningham, at Black Mountain in Jackson, New Hampshire. If you follow independent skiing at all, you know the name. Erik is the CEO of Entabeni Systems, the director of Indy Pass, and now the sole owner
I read a piece this week on Snowbrains about the four states that used to have ski resorts and don’t anymore. Kansas lost Mt. Bleu in 1983. Nebraska lost Devil’s Nest in 1974. Kentucky lost both Lakewood Village and Ski Butler by the mid 1980s. Georgia lost its
For most of the past twenty years, Vail’s playbook was simple. Buy resorts, put them on the Epic Pass, and use the pass’s ever increasing value to get skiers to commit their money before the snow even falls. It worked. It made Vail the largest ski resort operator
The first in a new series, tracking the weather setting up our winter, region by region, all season long. I’ve been skiing for over 45 years, and every one of those seasons started the same way, with me squinting at a NOAA outlook map trying to figure out if
Vermont Housing Finance Agency just published its 2025 to 2029 Housing Needs Assessment, and if you operate, invest, or lend anywhere near a mountain resort, you need to read the housing stock numbers closely. I’ve spent 25 years building and lending in these markets, and the Vermont data is
A mountain I could not name, a plan I could not share, and the build that starts this winter. By Daniel Kaufman | Dan Ski & Build If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed the breadcrumbs. Back in May I wrote about a place
There’s a profile making the rounds right now on Erik Mogensen — the Entabeni Systems founder who’s become the unofficial face of independent ski areas fighting back against Epic and Ikon. The framing in most of the coverage is cultural: small hills, mom-and-pop charm, “skiing shouldn’t
I spend a lot of time thinking about the ones that didn't get built. Not just ski areas — all of it. The subdivisions that stalled in permitting. The resorts that broke ground and ran out of money. The mixed-use developments where the vision was right and the
Posted to DanSkiAndBuild.com | June 2026 There’s a particular kind of real estate that makes my brain light up: distressed assets with a story, underutilized land with bones, and places where someone else’s abandoned ambition becomes someone else’s opportunity. Last week, I came across a listing that