A study of some 2,000 houses around the Sälen resort, 400 kilometres northwest of Stockholm, has seen prices rise to their current average of 1,670,000 kronor ($230,000).

A holiday home by the slopes today costs an average of just over one million kronor more than it did in 1991, according to statistics compiled jointly by the Association of Swedish Real Estate Agents (Mäklarsamfundet) and property assessment service Värderingsdata.

“By and large this price development applies to many of the larger, well-established Swedish ski resorts,” said Claudia Wörman, an analyst at the Association of Swedish Real Estate Agents, to news agency TT.

Holiday homes in the mountains were not immune to the carnage caused by a financial and property crisis that ravaged Sweden in the early 1990s. But prices began to recover after a few years, and since the turn of the millennium all indicators have taken a steep upward turn.

“There really has been a remarkable development in prices,” said Wörman.

“We are a people that likes to ski, but it is of course also possible to travel to the mountains during the summer.”

An increase in opportunities for renting out holiday homes is also believed to have contributed to the price hike.

But despite the pleasures of careering down the slopes and indulging in after-ski activities, serious investors would have been better advised to stick to the stock exchange, which rocketed in value by 500 percent over the same period.