But those second, vacation homes, which can cost several million dollars, often sit empty during most of the year. "We like timeshare units, because those projects put skiers on the ski lifts and people in our restaurants and shops," Thompson says. He adds that a market study is being conducted to determine what type of fractional ownership is preferred. "If the answers come back that they want the small, fractional ownership of 1/20th, let's say, we would consider that a vacation rather than a real estate deal, and we would not be interested in building it ourselves." But, he says, if the interest is for one quarter "then we would construct our own projects."

Thompson suspects there will be strong demand for such projects. "We do feel there's a lot of demand," he tells GlobeSt.com. "Prices have gotten too high and ski companies have responded with real estate that makes the units smaller, so they're more affordable. But you can only go so small. You can't build a 200-sf condo."

A one-quarter ownership allows a person to buy a share of a luxury unit at the fraction of the cost of whole ownership, he says. "Especially if the buyer is from the Front Range and comes up fairly frequently and puts the unit in a rental pool when not using it, it can be very economical compared to buying a whole unit or even renting a hotel room. We definitely think fractional timeshare is a booming business and is going to continue to attract more interest.