Hi Peachy.

Dog is now in new home in Perth I am afraid.  Sonar in Tom Price is a long way from Mackay.  The local renovation mob had one. 

Cheers,

Janice

Hi Peachy,

Sorry to hear of your dilemma.  I also have an investment property in Mackay so would love to know the name of the plumber not to use.

I live in a mining town in a 40 year old house owned by Rio.  Our pipework sprung a leak, luckily not under the house but under the patio slab.  They brought in the sonar device but could only manage to pinpoint within 50 cm or so of the leak.  They then had to dig up the concrete until they found it.   Funny thing was our dog kept sniffing at a point on the concrete and we joked that the dog knew where the leak was.  The plumbers ignored the dog and kept digging up concrete, digging up probably 50 cm x 50 cm  in the end, only to find the dog was spot on with detecting the leak!  Our house was not the only one to have a similar problem.  Good luck.  I look forward to hopefully a better outcome with the second plumber.  Cheers, Janice

Josh has great value packages (see above).   His prices are good. 

I have a property in Plantation Palms Rural View and it is renting as of last week for $660 pw unfurnished.   Rural view and the northern beaches areas in general seem to be very popular.  
What do the locals think?

I am pretty happy that my new 4 x 2 house in Rural View that has just been built will be achieving around $700 pw rent a 8.4% yield on purchase price.  This rent is $170 higher than was originally appraised 6 months ago, so yes, I would say mackay is going great guns.
 

I bought  new in Emerald (settlement last dec).  Very happy, rental vacancies low,  getting $950 pw for fully furnished house bought for $455,000 furnished.  To me this price is much much less risky than moranbah and check out the return!  Tenant is a corporate tenant and they even do their own cleaning and the people who stay there have their food provided elsewhere so the kitchen will be hardly used.  On a 1+1 etc lease (with commercial lease in place) for 5 years, still only pay 7.5% management fee.  Two friends have bought there also and everyone is very happy.  One is having a build and the same tenant I have has been chasing them to rent it.  When I called in October to investigate there were people sleeping in cars due to lack of accomodation.  With Emerald there is a flood risk.  85% of town flooded in last floods.  I have found insurance to be same price none the less as for a non flooding area and my place is elevated over 1 metre, far enough for 1 in 100 year flood. 

It is hard to buy at the moment, everyone seems to know about emerald now and good places are selling within a day.  Read the other thread on mining areas.  Josh has written lots on good estates to buy in and what to avoid (there are some dodgily made houses in emerald so watch out). 
Cheers, Janice. 

Interesting reading thanks Jamie.