VICTORIA'S ski towns are in the grips of a housing crisis and many think that the 2022 ski season will be the one that reveals just how close Aussie ski towns are to falling apart.

During COVID lockdowns Melburnians found themselves looking for a tree–change and the ubiquity of working from home made ski towns a viable option.

With regional houses more affordable than major cities, it made sense to buy property in locations such as Mansfield and surrounds.

Director at Adams Estate Agents, Zach Adams, said having had two interrupted years and with COVID restrictions now behind us, the many diehard snow families who frequently spend their winter months on Mt Buller are all eagerly ready to enjoy a normal snow season.

"The property market has been booming during this time with agents reporting sales figures are up 40–50 per cent higher on previous years," he said.

Zach said nobody ever anticipated the surge of demand for alpine property during COVID.

"All of our stock has been selling rapidly over the summer season and particularly the last few months in the lead up to winter," he said.

"Off–market sales have been constant as has the open market with supply and demand playing a huge role."

Although Mt Buller offers the most extensive amount of accommodation in Victoria's ski resorts, the village is nearly built out and properties are typically held through generations of families or owned by several groups under a membership or share arrangement.

In Mt Buller some long term rentals were converted into short stay holiday accommodation, like AirBnBs which bring their own issue to ski towns.

Rental inventory dropped and suddenly there were few places for resort workers to live.

With staff struggling to find a place to live, there's a flow on effect to local businesses and the big resorts.

Chief executive officer of the Mt Buller and Mt Stirling Resort Management Board, Mark Bennetts, said where 1000 of the 8300 on mountain beds on Mt Buller are used for staff accommodation, many more are living off mountain in satellite towns.

He explains the catch 22 of the housing crisis for both tourism and ski season workers.

"The high demand for alpine property increases property prices, which translates into higher charges to businesses needing to rent rooms for their staff," Mark said.

"At the moment businesses can face costs of $4000 per bed per season, and can only recover about half of that in rent paid by the staff member.

"That means businesses have to subsidise accommodation for their staff, which reduces their financial viability.

"Some businesses try to address that issue by buying more property themselves, and there have been numerous instances where old lodges, which used to welcome lodge members and members of the public, have now become staff accommodation.

"But that then reduces the number of beds available for visitors, which affects the viability of the whole resort.

"Seasonal resort workers, business owners and long–time locals are all affected by the housing crisis."

Mark believes the answer to the current crisis in Australia lies in purpose built and low cost accommodation specifically for staff, built on the outskirts of the village so that they have ready access to work while leaving prime sites available for visitors.

"Land is typically not an issue, because the accommodation could even be built over carparks which would have the added benefit of making some public parking under cover," Mark said.

"This would allow those older lodges to be made available to the public again, or redeveloped into apartments or more modern lodges.

"It's no surprise that developers haven't taken up the opportunity to build staff accommodation when the best and highest return from developments lies in building apartments – especially during a real estate boom."

Mark believes it can be done but it will need steps and incentives implemented for change.

"Planning reforms which prescribe certain blocks for staff accommodation," he suggests.

"Incentives such as zero site rent payable to the Resort Management Board, or a co–contribution from government in the interests of having sustainable alpine resorts for the good of the economy."

"What's undeniable is that we need solutions, and quickly.

"Without ski resort accommodation for workers, ski resorts don't run.

"The slopes go ungroomed, the lifts stop spinning and the mountain goes quiet.

"The ski bums, the frothers, the quirky locals, the mountain lovers – they let the snow dream go because it just got too hard."

(*Additional reporting by Rachael Oakes–Ash and Pam Zierk–Mahoney)