Whitefish Mountain in Montana has been named as the best ski resort town in the US for real estate investors in a report that ranks locations according to their investment potential.

The report from property firm Realty Trac identifies 19 US towns with high quality ski resorts after taking into account the health of the local housing market and the possibility of acquiring profitable investment homes.

To create the rankings, RealtyTrac identified all towns with a population of at least 2,500 that had at least one ski resort that ranked in the top 50 of the 182 ski resorts ranked by ZRankings as featured in Forbes magazine for their ‘Pure Awesomeness Factor’ in terms of the quality of the skiing and snowboarding experience.

Whitefish comes out top followed by Vail in Colorado, Truckee next to the Squaw Valley resort in California, Avon near Beaver Creek in Colorado, and Jackson Hole. The rest of the top 10 include Bozeman near the Big Sky ski area in Montana, Mount Bachelor in Oregon, Mammoth Lakes in California, Park City in Utah, Tellerude in Colorado.

Other towns with high rated ski resorts ranked lower for real estate investing for a variety of factors, including high unemployment rate, high median prices for housing, high rental vacancy rate and low gross rental yield.