Hey Yi, I had been looking at Alpha for investment properties which is west of emerald. I was very close to buying a property as the pospective mines in the area  were turning up good drilling results. However I walked away from the property and I'm kinda glad I did because the town is so is isolated that the projects would be fly in fly out so the demand for residential properties would be low. That was my theory anyway, I'll be interested to see how it pans out. If your interested google, Alpha in central queensland and Hancock Coal which is the company behind the major exploration in area.

Sometimes they buy the town though, this was the case with Tieri which is now owned and run by Xstrata but that was set up a long time ago and I don't know how prevelant that is anymore. In some cases the mine will set up a camp its self or an accomodation provider like Macs will service a number of the mines in the area, (I stay in one of these camps, not a whole heap of fun).

Regardless though, there will be some demand for executive style accomodation which managers etc. would live in. Anyway I hope this gives you some insight into mining towns

-Fossy