In the quest for value when choosing a ski holiday and buying a mountain property, Austria is enjoying a purple patch with British buyers. During the 2017 ski season more of us went to Austria than any year before — an increase of 3.2 per cent (on the previous ski season), according to the Austrian National Tourist Office.
The skiing country that is renowned for its warm hospitality, or Gemütlichkeit, traditional family-run restaurants and boot-stomping après-ski is where some of the most stylish Alpine developments can be found, with personal property apps to attract a tech-savvy generation of buyers, along with free wifi on the pistes. Hugo Thistlethwayte, the head of international sales at Savills, says: “The projects with fully managed rental schemes offer good potential for income generation as overseas buyers seek to cover the costs of ownership.”
Average property prices in Austria are 28 per cent below the Alpine average, according to Jessica Delaney, the founder of Alpine Marketing, an Austrian ski specialist agency. “We are seeing property prices growing quickly, as well as demand, so it will not stay this way for long,” she says. “British demand may have slipped by 5 per cent [due to the drop in sterling] in the past year, but they still make up nearly 50 per cent of buyers. Although Slovenian and Hungarian buyers are new on the scene, with the number of Dutch, French and Germans increasing.”
Snow reliability is key, and with an increase in British Airways flights from Heathrow to Innsbruck this winter, the resort of Obergurgl, a favourite with British skiers, is likely to grow in popularity — plus it is a great bet for early (and late) season snow.
Situated in the Ötztal Valley at 1,950m, this season it is linked on the same ski pass to Sölden — home of the famous glass Ice Q gourmet mountain-top restaurant where part of the James Bond film Spectre was filmed — providing 254km of high-altitude skiing. “Last year [and the year before] many resorts lacked snow at the beginning of the season, yet Obergurgl opened all of its lifts on December 15 and closed them in mid-April,” says Delaney. “Part of the appeal is that it is a laid-back resort with no lift queues, yet it can be lively.”
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Little comes up for sale in this charming Tyrolean resort, set round an elegant church, yet there are two new schemes in the centre linked to the historic Hotel Edelweiss & Gurgl, owned by the most influential family in the town, the Scheibers. Once a family of farmers, they also built the first mountain hut and the first ski lift in the town in 1948.
A neighbouring project sold within two months, such was the demand. “One of the buyers has been coming to the resort for 40 years,” says Lukas Scheiber, the owner of the hotel. “Families come here, the children learn to ski and then they bring the next generation.”
Devotees of the resort and its famous hotel can buy a one-bedroom property from €546,146 (£482,853, Alpine Marketing). Apartments come fully furnished, with a managed rental scheme (owners get five weeks’ usage that they can book through an app). They all have views of the valley and come with access to the hotel, concierge and wellness facilities. Alpine Marketing is also selling apartments in Obergurgl Lodge, the conversion of a schloss (palace) building by a Hungarian developer, with a managed rental service and wellness facilitie. Prices start at €243,848 for a one-bedroom apartment.
Although the Tyrol has long been popular with British skiers and buyers, the Salzburg region tends to be more affordable, and getting there is also easier this season with British Airways doubling its flights each week from Heathrow to Salzburg. “Zell am See-Kaprun-Saalbach is our strongest area [for selling ski property] because of new lift connections — Kaprun to the Kitzsteinhorn glacier, and Zell am See to Saalbach,” says Giles Gale, the managing director of Mark Warner Property.
The linking of picturesque resorts such as Kaprun and the lakeside town of Zell am See to the serious skiing area of Saalbach-Hinterglemm means it ticks most boxes for buyers. The agency has a fully furnished three-bedroom penthouse apartment for sale in the centre of Saalbach for €699,000. There’s a bar, restaurant and modern sauna on site, or the lively après-ski of the resort is close to hand.
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If buyers want something cheaper yet tipped for long-term growth, they should look in Neukirchen, a small village 1 hour and 40 minutes from Salzburg and Innsbruck. “No one’s ever heard of this little resort, but the same was true of nearby Bramberg, another once-sleepy traditional village where prices have risen in five years due to extensive investment,” Delaney says.
About €13 million has been spent on lifts — the Ganzer Express will speed up access to the 75km of pistes in the Wildkogel ski arena. Alpine Marketing is selling one-bedroom flats from €209,000, or three to five-bedroom Forest Village chalets on the piste from €615,000, built to order. The waitresses may still wear dirndls, but there’s high-speed internet and Tesla charging points.
Or try Wagrain, a beautiful little village 45 minutes from Salzburg in a high valley in the vast Ski Amadé region. Thirteen four-bedroom detached ski-in, ski-out chalets are being built in a new resort, priced from €645,000, or two-bedroom apartments from €299,000.
Overseas buyers in the Salzburg region should beware that from January 1 laws were introduced to limit the amount of property with no rental obligation, and also to stop people from buying in areas that are designated for locals and then not renting their properties out. There are no such changes in Carinthia, in southern Austria, which benefits from new Easyjet flights from Gatwick to Klagenfurt. In the small, charming town of Bad Kleinkirchheim you can buy new-build small, traditional chalets in a ski-in, ski-out location from €378,173.