Dec. 12--With the economy in recession and Sept. 11 still casting a pall over the nation, this might not seem the ideal time to sell high-end vacation homes. 

But Intrawest Corp., developers of a slope-side condominium complex at the famed Squaw Valley ski resort, this week put 52 units on the market, priced from $300,000 to more than $1 million, banking that there's enough demand to sell them all by April. 

Tom Jacobson, vice president of Intrawest's resort development group, said he's expecting demand to be strong for the property, which is the second of four phases planned for the Village at Squaw Valley development. 

In 2000, demand for phase one, called First Ascent, was so strong that all 139 units sold in six hours and brought in $79 million -- a staggering average of $650 per square foot. 

Last June, 100 units of phase two, called 22 Station, sold out in two days, at an average price of $750 a square foot. 

In the meantime, Jacobson said, Intrawest took the remaining 52 units off the market so the development could have inventory to draw traffic during the winter. 

Since Intrawest gets a percentage of revenue generated by shops and restaurants in the village, it would benefit from having potential condo buyers coming up during the ski season and patronizing the merchants, Jacobson said. 

Real estate experts said Intrawest should have no trouble selling the remaining condos, even though Intrawest has raised prices on the units by anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000. 

"I don't see any reason why this shouldn't go well," said Jeffrey Englin, chairman of the department of applied economics and statistics at the University of Nevada, Reno. 

"There are a lot of people looking for second homes, or who are retiring out of the Bay Area or Los Angeles. If you've owned real estate in the Bay Area for 25 years, it's not hard to come up with half a million dollars for a place at Squaw Valley." 

While the last 22 Station condos aren't selling at the frantic rate of previous units, Jacobson said two sold Monday and he expects to sell several more Friday. 

Potential buyers might be heartened by the resale value of phase one units. Jacobson said one condo recently sold for $1.82 million, a $600,000 increase in 18 months. Others are on the market for 30 percent to 100 percent increase in their original price, he said. 

That kind of appreciation isn't apparent in other North Tahoe properties, but interest is picking up after a somewhat slow year, said Keri Brown, manager of Prudential California Realty's Tahoe-Truckee region. 

"Just in the last week and a half, we've seen a lot of activity," Brown said. 

After several years of rapid run-up, prices on higher-end properties declined by 10 to 20 percent last year, but the average sales price in the North Tahoe and Truckee areas is still about $500,000, she said. 

Brown said Intrawest should have no problem selling off its 50 units and speculated that any marketing the company does could generally benefit real estate sales in the area. 

"When you have a group enticing people up the hill to look at their product, buyers will look at other things that are available, too," she said. 

Intrawest may have the ski resort condo market in the North Tahoe-Truckee market to itself for at least another year. East West Partners is developing a 213-unit complex at Northstar, but nothing will be going on sale for 12 months, said Roger Lessman, managing partner of the Colorado-based development company. 

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(c) 2001, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.