Ken Beilicz grew up in Jindabyne in the NSW Snowy Mountains in the 1970s, and has lived there on and off since, but says the town has changed significantly.
One of the most dramatic changes has been the cost of buying a home.
Data from Proptrack shows Jindabyne has experienced the highest rise in prices for both houses and units of any suburb in regional NSW over the past five years.
Mr Beilicz said it had forced some locals out of the town.
"Unfortunately Jindabyne itself, the community structure, has gone," Mr Beilicz said.
The median price of a house in Jindabyne has risen by $925,000 since April 2018 to $1,550,000 — an increase of 148 per cent.
Mr Beilicz was one of many locals who told the ABC they had been priced out of the housing market in Jindabyne.
"Even five years ago, you could go to the footy, watch the Bears play. You go out at night, go down to the lake, go up the hill and have a ski together," he said.
"Now, that community is not there anymore because those people aren't living here anymore."
Proptrack's director of economic research, Cameron Kusher, said while many of Australia's regions experienced price rises as people from cities moved during the pandemic, there were other factors at play in Jindabyne.
"Jindabyne is a pretty small suburb overall, and it doesn't take a lot more people to want to move to the area to significantly put up prices," Mr Kusher said.
"Also the big thing in Jindabyne is we haven't seen a lot of new housing construction in the market.
"So the lack of new stock and the increase in demand has given people selling their properties scope to ask really high prices, and people have been paying it."
Locals priced out
Jindabyne sits less than half an hour from the NSW ski fields at Perisher and becomes the main hub for alpine activities during winter.
Chair of the local chamber of commerce Olivier Kapetanakos said the demand for housing was being driven by people from out of town.
"It's people who have decided to buy a property either purely from an investment perspective because, obviously, the returns are very good," Mr Kapetanakos said.
"Or it's people who want a lifestyle property, who use it as a holiday home, and when it's not in use, they'll rent it out on the online platforms."
Mr Kapetanakos said, with many seasonal workers and people working in the tourism industry, housing was unaffordable for most locals.
"In this area here wages aren't necessarily as high as they are in Sydney, so the affordability of housing here is beyond a local's ability," he said.
"We're talking about people who are working as a tradie, or working in hospitality."
Mr Kapetanakos said the town could not survive another five years of similar increases in house prices.
"It'll be a dead town," he said.
"There'll be people who live here who perhaps can't contribute to the local economy, and those who can contribute to the local economy can't afford to live here.
"So we'll end up with towns without a soul, and potentially towns without workers."
Mr Beilicz said it had been hard to watch the town he loved change so much.
"It's all an investor's market here, with short-term residents," he said.
"Those people who have grown up here, lived here, invested in the community through hard times, are now forced to move out because they can't afford it.
"And they're going to smaller towns within the area so they can stay close to their families, or they move to cities where they don't have a support network that they had when living here for 40 years."
