The vacation home market in Steamboat Springs in Routt County, Colorado was a favorite among affluent baby boomers. Investor speculations created a market boom in the area between 2003 and 2007, spurred by the growing demand for vacation properties.

According to industry experts, many investors competed for pre-construction prices planning to sell for profits upon completion of a condominium project.

But the real estate development market took a beating in 2007 due to the collapse of subprime lending, decline in consumer spending and bank failures. The devastating developments wreaked havoc on the local economy, resulting to a drop in construction and homes sales, increase in the number of bank foreclosed home listings, shut downs of restaurants and retail centers and massive lay offs.

According to analysts, the mountain real estate development is driven by affluent people belonging to the 5 percent of the total population of the country. They believed that the key to the recovery of the mountain resort property market lies on the financial conditions of affluent families in suburban Texas, Connecticut, California and Illinois.

They said that baby boomers wanting vacation homes transformed the real estate market in Routt County into a booming business in 2007, reaching $1.5 billion total home sales. The booming market attracted all sorts of buyers, many wanting to capitalize on investment potentials of mountain resort properties.

Many of them bought grand houses and paid their mortgages by renting the properties to vacationers. The amount earned from vacation rentals were more than enough to pay for their mortgages.

Until the latter of 2008 when the financial market collapse and recession spreads quickly across the country, leaving the affluent vacation home market dried up. And to make matters worse, a great number of loans taken out for vacation homes were adjustable rate mortgage with higher interest.

The turn of events left many owners unable to save their properties from foreclosures. Some of them just walk away from their properties when they learned that they were worth less than their mortgages.

The number of properties that received foreclosure filings as of July 24 reached a total of 96, and the figures keep getting higher every day.