Real estate developer and investor Daniel Kaufman, founder of Kaufman & Company and DEK Builds, has launched Mountain Watch, a free section of his LandBriefing land opportunity watchlist that scores land and housing fundamentals in mountain resort and gateway towns. The launch comes as Oasis Management, which holds roughly 6.5% of Vail Resorts (NYSE: MTN), has filed a Schedule 13D and nominated four director candidates, including Olympic gold medalist Picabo Street and former Disney CEO Robert Chapek. In its filing, Oasis said it may explore or propose a review or sale of the company or some of its 42 resorts.
"Whatever you think of the politics, the question underneath this fight is a land and housing question," Kaufman said. "If Vail ends up shedding non-core mountains, what happens to the towns built around them? 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 context for Kaufman's launch is a sharp downturn in Vail's performance. Vail Resorts reported 14.8 million skier visits across its ski areas in the 2025/26 season, down from 16.9 million the prior season, the steepest year-over-year decline in the company's history, and early sales of Epic Pass products for 2026/27 declined about 10%. Those figures suggest weakening demand at the very time the company's ownership structure is being challenged.
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 launch set covers 10 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, UT (Park City Mountain): Score 87, Buy Window; Breckenridge, CO (Breckenridge): Score 79, Selective / Steady; Truckee, CA (Northstar): Score 75, Selective / Steady; and Stowe, VT (Stowe): Score 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.
"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."
Kaufman also announced The Gateway Index, a recurring data feature coming to his ski industry publication, Danski and Build. The index will follow the 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. It will track land absorption, permit activity, the workforce housing gap, and price per buildable acre in each town. 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.
The importance of this launch extends beyond one company's proxy fight. Vail Resorts' 42 resorts anchor local economies that depend on workers who need housing. If Oasis succeeds in forcing a sale or breakup, the towns around those mountains could face abrupt changes in investment and employment. Kaufman's tools give residents, planners, and small developers a free, sourced way to monitor those risks. For an industry already squeezed by falling visits and pass sales, the data could become an early warning system for which mountain communities are most exposed.
