Buying a Ski Property in Alpe d’Huez with Charles Antoine Sialelli, French Alps Adviser, Athena Advisers.

Alpe d’Huez offers a super prime location at 1800m altitude with a village which is mainly south facing, offering sun from morning to evening with superb sunsets.

People interested in buying properties for sale in Alpe d’Huez are looking for great skiing in a large ski domain in high altitude, but also a dual season resort thanks to Tour de France which makes Alpe d’Huez very famous.

The resort is very family friendly, but also young and dynamic, offering a lot of events throughout the season, and also a good après ski culture.

Alpe d’Huez was mainly developed in the 1960s and ‘70s and it is now entering in to its regeneration phase, like many other French resorts. We can now really feel and see the change in the resort, especially in terms of architecture, going from constructions in the 1970s to nice and pretty new ski properties respecting the local architecture.

This resort is conveniently located just under two hours from Lyon international airport and an hour and a half from Grenoble international airport.

Alpe d’Huez has a fantastic ski domain of more or less 250km of run, going from the village located at 1,800m altitude, and reaching the upper part of the ski domain on the glacier located at 3,300m altitude. In 2022, the resort of Alpe d’Huez is planning to link its ski domain with the resort of Les Deux Alpes in order to create a gigantic ski domain of 500km of run.

If I take all the resorts located above 1,800m altitude, Alpe d’Huez offers very competitive prices, as the price per square metre here is still between €10,000 and €13,000 per sqm and most of the properties have direct access to the slopes which is very convenient and not easy to find.

Alpe d’Huez is a fantastic destination for families and is active throughout the year which makes it ideal for those who want a home away from home for sport winter and summer holidays. In addition, with plans to create a new ski lift to Les Deux Alpes, it’s a really exciting time to invest here.

As Alpe d’Huez is a true dual-season resort, there is the possibility to generate rental yields throughout the year. Though the end of the 2019/20 ski season was cut short due to the pandemic, Alpe d’Huez had a very positive ski season prior to the Coronavirus outbreak with a busier pre-season, Christmas, January and February than the previous year. One figure that particularly stood out was the pre-season period, the first three weeks of December. During this time 78,800 overnight stays were booked, a massive 25% increase on the year before.

Alpe d’Huez enjoyed a very busy summer in 2020. According to the latest figures from the tourism office, overall, the total number of overnight stays during the summer increased by 2.3% between 2019 and 2020. August performed especially well with over 193,000 overnight stays recorded, an amazing 27.5% year-on-year increase. See our guide on renting out ski property in France to learn more about monetising your Alpe d’Huez property.

The Grande-Dame of the Alps, the high-altitude resort of Alpe d’Huez has many claims to fame: it was one of the first villages in France to welcome skiers (as early as 1904) and it was also where the beloved button-lift system was first invented.

After the second world war, Alpe d’Huez emerged as a trendy holiday destination for city dwellers looking for fresh mountain air, sublime scenery and, of course, plenty of sunshine. More than 30 hotels were built between 1945 and 1963 to keep up with the ever-growing demand for the resort and a few years later Alpe d’Huez was the host of the bobsleigh race during the 1968 Grenoble Winter Olympics.

Named the Best European Ski Resort 2020 by European Best Destinations, Alpe d’Huez is a certified Famille Plus ski resort famed for its 300 days of sunshine. The resort has access to 250km of pistes which cater to all abilities and the resort is considering a brand-new ski lift that would connect the resort to the neighbouring Deux Alpes which would add access to a further 200km of pistes.

Not only is Alpe d’Huez perfect for winter ski breaks, but it is a delightful destination during the summer too with plenty of outdoor activities for the whole family to enjoy such as hiking, tobogganing, cycling, horse riding and playing a round of golf with a view. In addition, the Tour de France regularly passes through Alpe d’Huez with professionals taking on the resort’s famously challenging climb which features 21 hairpin bends.