Real estate developer and investor Daniel Kaufman has launched Mountain Watch, a free section of the LandBriefing land opportunity watchlist that scores land and housing fundamentals in ten mountain resort and gateway towns. The launch coincides with an intensifying proxy fight at Vail Resorts, where activist investor Oasis Management, which holds roughly 6.5% of the company, has filed a Schedule 13D, nominated four director candidates, and indicated it may explore a review or sale of the company or some of its 42 resorts. Kaufman framed the battle as fundamentally a land and housing question. "If Vail ends up shedding non-core mountains, what happens to the towns built around them?" he said. "The mountain does not stop being a mountain. The operator just stops wanting to run it. Somebody still has to build for the people who run the lifts, staff the hotels, and work the shops."
The timing underscores the stakes for communities that depend on ski tourism. Vail Resorts reported 14.8 million skier visits in the 2025/26 season, down from 16.9 million the prior season—the steepest year-over-year decline in company history—and early sales of Epic Pass products for 2026/27 fell about 10%. Those numbers suggest weakening demand just as the operator faces pressure to restructure its portfolio, potentially putting smaller mountains and the towns around them at risk.
Mountain Watch scores each market from 0 to 100 on four weighted factors: momentum (30%), catalyst (25%), housing opportunity (25%), and supply constraint (20%). Each market is also broken out across six asset classes: affordable and workforce housing, market rate, luxury, land, commercial, and hospitality. Every figure is dated and sourced to Census permit data, Zillow, Redfin, local MLS reports, and municipal and housing authority records. Access is free and requires no sign-in.
The initial set covers ten markets: Park City, Jackson, Steamboat Springs, Breckenridge, Telluride, Big Sky, Mammoth Lakes, Truckee, Stowe, and Ketchum. Four sit at the base of mountains Vail Resorts owns today. Park City, Utah (Park City Mountain) scores 87 and is rated Buy Window; Breckenridge, Colorado (Breckenridge) scores 79, Selective/Steady; Truckee, California (Northstar) scores 75, Selective/Steady; and Stowe, Vermont (Stowe) scores 72, Selective/Steady. Park City posts the highest score in the set. Land sales there rose 46% in units and 74% in dollar volume year over year in Q2 2026, and the Kimball Junction reinvestment zone approved in April 2026 includes 500 deed-restricted workforce units. In Stowe, the Selectboard voted 5 to 0 in July to cap short-term rentals at 850, down from about 1,450, with long-term rental vacancy near zero.
Kaufman also announced The Gateway Index, a recurring data feature coming to his ski industry publication, Danski and Build. It will follow towns around Vail's smaller and regional mountains, including Gunnison and Crested Butte, Colorado; Stowe, Ludlow, Dover, and Wilmington, Vermont; Bartlett, Jackson, and Newbury, New Hampshire; and Pennsylvania's Laurel Highlands. The index will track land absorption, permit activity, the workforce housing gap, and price per buildable acre in each town.
"Boards say a lot of things during a proxy fight that never turn into a transaction," Kaufman said. "But distressed and non-core mountain assets do not wait for certainty to trade. Operators, lenders, and landowners around these towns are already positioning. Mountain Watch is built to help people find the market before everyone is looking at the same three parcels."
The initiative matters because it provides a data-driven lens on how a potential breakup of Vail Resorts could ripple through housing markets that are already strained by short-term rentals, land scarcity, and a shortage of worker accommodations. No sale of any Vail resort has been announced, and neither Mountain Watch nor The Gateway Index is a prediction that any specific transaction will occur. Still, by quantifying momentum, catalysts, and supply constraints, the tools offer residents, planners, and investors a way to anticipate where pressure may build next.
