The number nobody publishes

Every listing in the village tells you what an apartment costs to hold. None of them tell you what one earns.

So here it is, on this apartment, averaged across the last three financial years. Actual letting income, actual commission and cleaning, then the two allowances the agent asked for. Nothing is projected and nothing is a forecast.

The year-by-year figures are not on this page. Alex Cherry has them and will go through them with you on the phone.

Net letting incomeAverage of the last three financial years, after commission and cleaning$46,133

Less lease feeThe KT levy, $4,300 a year−$4,300

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

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

Past letting performance is not a forecast. What an apartment earns in a season depends on the snow, on the platform it is booked through and on how many weeks the owners keep for themselves. These are actual figures for named years. The body corporate below is not deducted from this figure.

Both numbers, up front

Every alpine listing publishes its quarterly figures. Almost none of them add the quarters up, because the annual total is the number a buyer reacts to.

So here it is. Two multiplications and an addition, done for you, before you ring anybody. If the number rules it out, you have lost ten seconds instead of a Saturday.

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.

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

There are no council rates on this apartment. The lease fee is the whole of that line. Building insurance sits inside the body corporate. If you let the apartment out you would also carry landlord insurance, which is $550 a year, taking it to $16,714. Everything else, power and repairs and the rest, is variable and depends on how you use it.

The apartment

One bedroom, renovated, and a ski room downstairs

Lantern 13 sits in the Lantern Apartments, in the central village. Open-plan living and dining, a bedroom, a bathroom with underfloor heating and a heated towel rail, and a European laundry that does not eat the floor plan.

Double-glazed sliding doors open onto the shared balcony, which overlooks the resort. That balcony is the reason to look at this one rather than the others in its price bracket.

Downstairs there is a dedicated external ski room for the boards, the boots and the bikes. Anyone who has carried gear up a stairwell in ski boots knows exactly what that is worth, and it is not a line most listings bother to lead with.

The floor plan puts it at 41 m² internal and 20 m² external, so 61 m² in total. Those figures are approximate and come 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

The drive in, the apartment, and out with the skis

Fifty seconds, shot over a weekend rather than staged for a listing. Off the Alpine Way and into the village, through the living room to the balcony, coffee outside in the snow, the kitchen and the dining nook, then out the door and down to the lifts.

It has sound, so it waits until you press play.