Good news for Real Estate Agents.

There’s mixed news out of Aspen. I just read an article in the Aspen Daily News that the market for $10 million homes may be slowing in this “otherwise healthy market.” Aspen sometimes surpasses $2 billion in annual real estate sales, explaing why people are writing articles like the one I just mentioned. Is that kind of supercharged market healthy? I guess if you are in the Russian mafia you can afford housing but for the working stiffs there’s no place left to live.

In 2011 Aspen was the most expensive place to buy real estate in the country. That year, the lowest priced single family home in Aspen was a “wobbledy-box” trailer mobile home listed for $559,000.

Soon come here.

Long Lines, No Waiting

In other news an Aspen couple, Joseph and Shira Lipsey were just charged with felony cocaine distribution, contributing to the deliquency of a minor, providing alcohol and tobacco products to minors, drug possession. I first heard of these party animals when their 19-year-old son recently drove a Tesla into the river. I saw the picture in the paper and remember thinking that the Tesla held up pretty well.

The Lipsey’s are new to the Aspen scene but have drawn national attention for a bottled water scam in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Journalist Russ Baker wrote about the family on whowhatwhy.org.

“The Lipseys are a politically connected family that gives to both political parties and owns one of the country’s largest gun wholesalers,” Baker wrote.

“FEMA had handed out water contracts to a variety of companies. One of the recipients, not surprisingly, was Nestle Waters North America, easily the continent’s biggest producer, with 15 brands of bottled water and 23 bottling facilities in the U.S. and Canada,” the whowhatwhy.org report says. “Then, without explanation, FEMA went sole source, picking a little-known, family-run firm called Lipsey Mountain Water. The company, based in Norcross, Ga., had just 15 full-time employees, no production capacity, and no distribution network. Instead, it was aggressively soliciting other companies to supply its needs.

“The father and son came in and said, ‘We want you to sell us water,’ recalled Kim Jeffery, president and CEO of Nestle Waters North America. “I said, ‘Why would I do that? I have a contract with FEMA.’

These fun folks recently moved into a $4.4 million Aspen Highlands home. The warrant says that their home became a refuge for kids with “independent social lives because they can drink and they can do drugs,” says the warrant.

This kind of thing is so ’80s.

Man vs. Moose

Last week a 78-year-old man was attacked by a loose moose on the road to Independence Pass east of Aspen. The massive bull charged, knocking Alfred Braun down and started trampling with big front hooves.

Witnesses thought that Braun was getting killed by the frenzied moose. But Braun is one badass octegenarian and he fended the monster off with a ski pole. Braun was on his back poking the belly of the beast when it got a taste of the tip of his pole and ran off.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife agents had to track down Aspen’s nightmare monster and put it down.

CPW spokesperson told the Aspen Daily News that, “Moose don’t fear people, and they will typically tolerate the presence of a human, unless you get too close, and they’ll typically let you know that you’ve crossed that line,” he said. “For a moose to charge that aggressively from 100 yards away, in the officer’s experience, was excessively aggressive behavior, and it charged him more than once.”

So walk lightly and carry a ski pole. You never know when you are going to run into a psychotic moose from Aspen.

Steve Skinner can be reached at nigel@sopris.net.