If you’ve been researching about mining boom and its effect on property investing, you very well know by now that surge in workers taking advantage of mining projects mean there is more demand for residential properties for these workers.
And if you’ve been keeping an eye out on areas where mining projects abound, Queensland mining towns are most definitely on your list. We’re pretty sure you’ve heard stories of investors who have trodden down the road of investing in mining towns and just how incredible the impact of these mining projects are to property values and rental yields.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”360″]http://youtu.be/uSBBS4SiZ6E[/youtube]
Now if you are really keen on investing in mining towns, I suggest you drop by the website every now and then as I will be reviewing some of Queensland property investing hotspots in a series of articles. In order to give you first hand account of these reviews, me and Melbourne-based buyer’s agent and property strategist, Lisa Parker, will literally take to the road as we take a mining town road trip this month.
For four days, Lisa and I will travel, Thelma and Louise style, and have a go-see at mining towns and regional hotspots in Queensland. Planning our route and destinations for the road trip has proven to be tricky—in as much as we’d like to cover all our desired locations, the driving distances are long, so we have to narrow down our choices and select just a few key locations for our first road trip – note, though, it may not be our last!
After researching the location and towns within the region, we decided to assess three major Queensland mining areas—the Surat Basin, the Bowen Basin and the Gallilee Basin .
Check out a preview of these mining towns below:
Photo from http://www.iconenergy.com.au/
The Surat Basin
When I first read about Surat Basin in property magazines and started hearing about it in property investing conversation a while back, I had to get a map to find where on Earth Surat Basin was!
As I found out, the Surat Basin is located in South East Queensland. Coal mining, Liquified Natural Gas and coal seam gas are just some of the resource projects here, giving the town a growth boost . The largest regional town in the area is Toowoomba. Among its smaller, promising towns are Chinchilla, Miles, Roma and Dalby.
Click to view larger image
The Bowen Basin
Further north in Queensland is another major mining and resources area—The Bowen Basin.
Among the towns that have been of great interest to investors due to their growth in value and rental yields are Moranbah, Dysart, Emerald and Blackwater.
Meanwhile, the major regional towns that support the mining activities here are Gladstone, Rockhampton and Mackay.
The Galilee Basin
Located at the west part of the Bowen Basin area the Gallilee Basin. The major regional towns here are Emerald and Barcladine; whilst smaller towns in the region include Alpha, Jericho, Blackall, Aramac and Muttaburra.
Most of the mining projects here are related to thermal coal production and coal seam gas. It also has strong agricultural and cattle industries.
Where to?
From these three areas, Lisa and I will be choosing one to do an extensive review of for the four-day road trip. We hope to cover the other areas in another road trip.
In the course of our series, we will be taking a closer look at each of the towns to help you discern the opportunity resources from these areas present.