Pull the closing history for Founders Place, the ski-in condominium project inside Deer Crest at Deer Valley Resort, and you'll find fifty-two recorded sales. Prices from $2.51 million to $10.09 million. Sale-to-list ratios clustered between 95 and 100 percent. It reads like a mature comp set, the kind of dataset an appraiser or a buyer's agent would normally treat as settled ground.
It isn't. Forty-nine of those fifty-two closings happened in 2025. Two more closed in early 2026. The very first recorded sale was in 2024. That timeline matters more than the price range does, because almost every one of those transactions was a developer selling a unit off plan to its first owner, not one owner selling to another. A presale price tells you what a buyer was willing to pay East West Partners for a home that didn't exist yet, under contract terms the developer wrote. It does not tell you what the open market will pay for that same unit today, because that market has barely started trading.
The Difference Between a Presale and a Comp
A comp, in the strict sense, comes from an arm's-length negotiation between two parties who don't control the price on the other end. A presale closing comes from a buyer agreeing to a number the developer set months or years earlier, often before the building had drywall. Both show up identically in the MLS. Only one of them tells you what the resale market actually values a unit at right now.
At Founders Place, the bulk delivery ran through 2025, which is why the closing count spiked that year and then thinned out. The first true resales, meaning an original buyer selling to someone new, only began emerging in late 2025 and into early 2026. That's an important, unglamorous distinction for anyone using the closed dataset to argue a price. You're not benchmarking against a tested market. You're benchmarking against a developer's pricing schedule.
Why Park City's Condo Numbers Looked Like They Cracked in Q1 2026
This distinction explains something that alarmed a lot of people watching the broader Park City market earlier this year. The Park City Board of Realtors' first-quarter 2026 report showed condo sales inside Park City Limits cut in half, from 80 transactions in Q1 2025 down to 40 in Q1 2026, with dollar volume down 54 percent. On its face, that looks like a market in trouble.
The report traced the swing almost entirely to one place: Deer Crest. In Q1 2025, Deer Crest logged 29 condo transactions, driven by the Founders Place delivery wave. In Q1 2026, that fell to four. Nearly the entire headline decline in Park City Limits condo activity came from one building finishing its presale run, not from buyers losing interest in condos generally, as the Park Record reported in its coverage of the quarterly data.
The rolling twelve-month figures back that up. Over the trailing year, Park City Limits condo volume was actually up 12 percent, and the median price rose 17 percent to $2.25 million. A market absorbing a large wave of new luxury supply looks very different quarter to quarter than it does over a full year, and the quarterly snapshot caught the moment the wave finished, not the moment demand disappeared.
What Happens When Actual Resales Start Showing Up
Here's where it gets useful for anyone actually evaluating a Deer Crest condo this fall. The closed dataset at Founders Place, dominated by presales, averaged $1,921 per square foot. Current active listings, which increasingly include genuine resales rather than developer inventory, are priced from roughly $2,246 to $3,306 per square foot.
That gap is worth sitting with. It could mean the real market is worth meaningfully more than the presale baseline suggested, as early buyers who got in during construction test higher prices now that the building is finished and occupied. Or it could mean sellers are asking for a number the market hasn't agreed to yet, since none of those active listings have closed. Until they do, that price band is a hypothesis, not a comp. Anyone pricing a Founders Place unit today should treat both numbers as data points in an unfinished story, not as a settled range.
Deer Crest's Four Communities, Side by Side
Deer Crest isn't one condo market. It's four, at very different stages of maturity.
| Community | Type | Delivery | Sales Depth | Recent Pricing | Ski Access |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| St. Regis Deer Valley | Condo hotel | Built 2009 to 2016 | 114 closings since 2009 | $1,480 to $2,724 per sq ft; recent range $3.85M to $17.8M | Hotel funicular, ski valet, slope-side entry |
| Founders Place | New condos | Delivering 2024 to 2027 | 52 closings, mostly presale | Closed avg $1,921/sq ft; active listings $2,246 to $3,306/sq ft | Ski Into Project / Ski Out of Project for most units |
| Deer Pointe | Townhomes | 12 units, Harmony Road | Thin, illiquid trading | Recent trades $930 to $1,018 per sq ft | Private ski track elevator |
| The Havens | New townhomes | 2027 delivery | Not yet trading | Active listings $3.4M to $6.2M | To be established as units complete |
St. Regis is the only one of the four with genuine long-run price discovery. Sixteen years and 114 closings means its comps mean something. Deer Pointe and The Havens are thin enough that any single sale moves the average, which is a different kind of market to buy into than one with a deep trading history.
Ski Access Isn't One Setting at Deer Crest
Even within Founders Place, ski access isn't uniform. Nearly every unit in the closed and active dataset carries the MLS designation "Ski Into Project" and "Ski Out of Project," meaning access runs through a shared building entry point rather than a private door. One recorded unit, number 2305, carries the rarer "Ski to Door" and "Ski Out of Door" designation, direct unit-level access to the Deer Hollow ski run. That unit closed in March 2026 for $9.75 million, a four-bedroom, 3,656-square-foot residence.
St. Regis handles access differently again, through a hotel funicular and ski valet service built into the property's operations. Deer Pointe uses a private track elevator that lifts residents directly to Deer Valley terrain. None of these are interchangeable, and the difference shows up in both daily use and eventual resale value. Confirming the exact access designation for a specific unit, not just the building's marketing description, is a step worth taking before writing an offer anywhere in Deer Crest.
The Costs That Show Up After the Presale Number
A presale contract rarely puts the full carrying-cost picture in front of a buyer the way an established resale listing does. At Founders Place, HOA dues vary by unit size and phase, from roughly $1,285 a month for the smallest configurations to more than $20,000 a quarter for the largest. That puts annual carrying costs anywhere from about $15,000 to over $80,000 depending on the unit, before ownership even factors in a Deer Crest master association transfer fee that applies to every resale.
Short-term rentals are permitted, but under Deer Crest Master Association guidelines that require a minimum five-night stay, and renters aren't permitted to bring pets even though owners may, subject to HOA rules. None of these figures were front and center during the presale years, when the conversation was mostly about floor plans and delivery dates. They matter now, to anyone comparing what a Founders Place unit will actually cost to hold against what St. Regis or Deer Pointe charge in the same neighborhood.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Founders Place's closed sales a reliable way to price a resale unit? Treat them as a starting reference, not a settled comp. Forty-nine of the fifty-two recorded closings were developer presales rather than transactions between independent buyers and sellers, so the closed price history reflects what East West Partners charged during construction, not what the open market has tested since.
Does the Deer Crest transfer fee apply to every sale? A master association transfer fee applies across all Deer Crest resale transactions. The exact rate should be confirmed directly with the association before closing, since it factors into net proceeds on the seller side and total cost on the buyer side.
Can every Founders Place unit walk directly onto the slopes? Not identically. Most units carry a project-level ski access designation, meaning access runs through a shared building entry rather than a private door. At least one recorded unit carries true door-to-door access. Ask for the specific designation on any unit under consideration.
How does Founders Place compare to St. Regis for rental income potential? St. Regis operates through an opt-in hotel rental program with full service infrastructure built around it. Founders Place permits nightly rentals under the Deer Crest Master Association's five-night minimum, without the same hotel operational layer. The right fit depends on whether an owner wants a hands-off program or is comfortable managing shorter-term guidelines independently.
If you're weighing a unit at Founders Place, St. Regis, or elsewhere in Deer Crest and want a read on which numbers are tested and which are still hypothetical, that's the kind of question worth a direct conversation before an offer, not after. Stein Eriksen Realty Group has spent years inside the Stein Collection and the Deer Valley resale market, and we're glad to walk through what a specific unit's history actually tells you. Contact us.
