The numbers

What it earns. What it costs.

All the way down, before you ring anybody.

What it earns, three year average

Net letting incomeAfter commission and cleaning$46,133

Less lease feeThe KT levy−$4,300

Less utilitiesAn allowance, not a meter reading−$5,000

Net return on $629,000$36,833 a year5.9%

Less body corporateThe same one in the cost table−$11,864

Less landlord insuranceOnly payable because it is let−$550

What an owner keepsAfter every fixed cost, a year$24,419

Actual figures for named years, not a forecast. A season depends on the snow and on how many weeks the owners keep, and the current owners keep 3 to 6 weeks a year for themselves. Those weeks are already out of the income above. Alex Cherry has the year by year.

Fixed costs, a year

Lease fee$1,075 a quarter, 4 quarters$4,300

Body corporate$2,966 a quarter, 4 quarters$11,864

Fixed costs, a year$16,164

No council rates, and building insurance sits inside the body corporate. Let it out and landlord insurance adds $550, taking it to $16,714. Power and repairs vary.

If that is near what a season in Thredbo already costs your family, you are paying it either way. The only question is whose pocket it goes into.

The apartment

One bedroom, renovated, and a ski room downstairs

Open-plan living and dining, double-glazed doors onto a shared balcony over the resort, and a bathroom with underfloor heating. Downstairs, a dedicated external ski room for the boards, the boots and the bikes.

41 m² inside, 20 m² out, 61 m² in total. Approximate, off the agency plan.

Renovated throughout
Double-glazed sliding doors
Underfloor heating and a heated towel rail
Open-plan living and dining
European laundry
Dedicated external ski room
Shared balcony overlooking the resort
Walk to the lifts, the shops and dinner

The film

Off the Alpine Way, through the door, out with the skis

Fifty seconds, shot over a weekend rather than staged. It has sound.

Every room

The whole set, not the best three

Fifteen photographs. Click any of them for full size.

Living room, looking across the resort

Open-plan living and dining

The shared balcony in snow

The kitchen, renovated throughout

The bedroom

The fireplace

Bathroom, with underfloor heating

The ski room, downstairs and secure

Living room in winter

Living through to the balcony

The dining nook

Bedroom from the wardrobe end

European laundry and entry

The communal terrace

Lantern Apartments, Banjo Drive

The village

Walk to the lifts. Walk home for lunch.

And on the evening the legs have gone, the free village shuttle stops at the door. Thredbo lists the Route 2 stop as “Lantern Apartments (on Banjo Drive)”. It runs through winter.

The lifts
Thredbo’s thriving après scene
The supermarket and the shops
Ski hire and the ski school
The Alpine Way bus stop
The summer trailhead and the chairlift to it

Thredbo village under snow, lodges and apartments along one side of the valley — The village in winter. Accommodation along one side of the valley, the mountain on the other, and the whole of it walkable.

A family carrying skis walks across a village footbridge in falling snow — Skis over the shoulder, on foot, in the snow. This is what walking distance means here.

Three hikers on an alpine walking track above Thredbo in summer — And the other half of the year, which is the half that surprises people.

That half is riding. Thredbo is Australia's only lift-accessed mountain bike park, over 40km of gravity trails off the same chairlifts that run in winter.

And the resort is still spending on those lifts. Thredbo general manager Stuart Diver has said the Gunbarrel chair is to be replaced by a six-seat Doppelmayr, about $35 million, and that he is hoping for winter 2028.