Hi,
Does anyone have an opinion on investing in Collinsville, Qld? Are the mines the main attraction in relation to employment? Is the mine still doing well? How about teachers?D & L [
]Never heard of it myself, but I can help you out I’m sure. I found myself looking at a mining town in WA where there were +ve cashflow properties but wondering about the town itself. What I did was:
1. Look up 5 – 10 businesses in town with phone numbers on whitepages.com.au.
2. Ring a few to get some gossip on the town, areas to buy etc. I asked someone if they knew a teacher at the school could talk to and got lucky.
3. Ring local tourist bureau to see what is happening tourism wise (new attractions, figures on tourists etc)
4. Ring the local paper and get it sent to you. Also talk to the editor about the town and their thoughts on what is happening with it.
5. Ring the mining company and find out their website.
6. Look at the mining companies website for annual reports, press releases, announcements, new deposits etc.
7. Look for companies estimate for the mine life.
8. Look at what their share price is doing and has done for the last 12 months.
9. Look up local council website for press releases etc.
10. Talk to council about crime rates, youth programs in place, life of local businesses in town etc.
11. Look at population trends in area (ABS, or use search engine)
12. Find out what percentage of the miners fly in/fly out each shift.
13. If all that looks good, talk to R/E agent about prospective rental returns and vacancy rates.If all the signs are positive, you are ready to start looking at previous prices, price trends and available property.
Oh, I also ring the local motel to see what vacancy rates are during the year.
BTW, I did not purchase in the twon as the mine life was only 4 years. I was not going to risk it.
Good luck on Collinsville, I’m sure you will find the info you need.
‘Eat rich food, barbeque a yuppie’
Originally posted by Rugbyfan:Never heard of it myself, but I can help you out I’m sure. I found myself looking at a mining town in WA where there were +ve cashflow properties but wondering about the town itself. What I did was:
1. Look up 5 – 10 businesses in town with phone numbers on whitepages.com.au.
2. Ring a few to get some gossip on the town, areas to buy etc. I asked someone if they knew a teacher at the school could talk to and got lucky.
3. Ring local tourist bureau to see what is happening tourism wise (new attractions, figures on tourists etc)
4. Ring the local paper and get it sent to you. Also talk to the editor about the town and their thoughts on what is happening with it.
5. Ring the mining company and find out their website.
6. Look at the mining companies website for annual reports, press releases, announcements, new deposits etc.
7. Look for companies estimate for the mine life.
8. Look at what their share price is doing and has done for the last 12 months.
9. Look up local council website for press releases etc.
10. Talk to council about crime rates, youth programs in place, life of local businesses in town etc.
11. Look at population trends in area (ABS, or use search engine)
12. Find out what percentage of the miners fly in/fly out each shift.
13. If all that looks good, talk to R/E agent about prospective rental returns and vacancy rates.If all the signs are positive, you are ready to start looking at previous prices, price trends and available property.
Oh, I also ring the local motel to see what vacancy rates are during the year.
BTW, I did not purchase in the twon as the mine life was only 4 years. I was not going to risk it.
Good luck on Collinsville, I’m sure you will find the info you need.
‘Eat rich food, barbeque a yuppie’
Well said Rugbyfan.
Warm Regards
ChanDollars
[Keep going, you’re on your way to financial freedom]What a great reply – thank you!
[^]
Shushar
I’ll tell you a funny story, I typed it all out this morning (a little differently though) and went to post it and realised that my modem had been disconnected while typing (thanks to my 8 month old son). It deleted the whole post and I can tell you I was not happy.[
!][!]It took me until this afternoon until I had the time to re-post it![^]
‘Eat rich food, barbeque a yuppie’
Originally posted by Rugbyfan:I’ll tell you a funny story, I typed it all out this morning (a little differently though) and went to post it and realised that my modem had been disconnected while typing (thanks to my 8 month old son). It deleted the whole post and I can tell you I was not happy.[
!][!]It took me until this afternoon until I had the time to re-post it![^]
‘Eat rich food, barbeque a yuppie’
But you still manage to posted with a great length and useful tips. Thanks.
Warm Regards
ChanDollars
[Keep going, you’re on your way to financial freedom]Good points Rugbyfan. I’d also suggest follow the town for a while if it’s a mining town. Go and read the back copies of the papers in the library if you can for a couple of years. Mining towns seem to go in boom/bust cycles. Even if the ore is there and can be extracted cheaply they’re at the mercy of overseas prices and foreign exchange rates.
Talk to a few of the older miners, they’ll have a pretty good idea whether there is more ore around. Try and find an area where there are smaller mining operations around, they’ll be leaner than the multinationals and also more committed to the local area.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. There’s an old gold mining town in NSW, Stuart Town (which used to be called Ironbark as in the poem). In the boom there were 10,000 plus miners now the population is very small. The old silverton museum near Broken Hill has stories about people shifting to Broken Hill who wweere told by the people in Silverton that they were fools, that Broken Hill was a flash in the pan and that Silverton would last. a few years later most of the buildings in Silverton wwere demolished and shifted to Broken HillThank you all very much for your replies. They are VERY helpful. Great tips, Rugbyfan. We’ll certainly use some of your advice.
Thank you
David and Lesleigh []Thanks for going to the trouble of redoing your reply, Rugbyfan. Very helpful info and much appreciated!
Cheers
BronThanks Rugbyfan, you have wonderful ideas, which will benefit a lot of people. It must have been a great effort to type out this info twice![
]I live in bowen, about 80 clicks from collsvegas.
It is highley reliant on the mines, power station and to a smaller extent teachers. A new mine recently opened so it might be alright. Teachers never stay long. Some live in bowen and just drive an hour to work every day.
The town has one hosp GP and one prive GP although tehy have difficulty keeping them (both have less than 6 mths here) One IGA store and thats about it. A lot of the houses are a dump (there are some nice ones up on the hill though).
If you want to know more let me know. I could ask most of the locals for you as i work there one day a week and I see a few of them.
Make sure you do your due dilligence. I think a lot of the CG has already occured due to this macro boom and if histroy is anything to go buy won’t move for another 20 years. (might be 10 tyears when the boomers start retiring as a few oldies move here because housing is cheap and there is a hospital.
Josh
PS I’ll try and check back here too if you have and Q’s. I don;t spend much time here as I’m usually looking at the stock market.
Oh and also I wouldn’t put money into investing in collinsville.
Josh
Hi Josh
TY so much for your reply. Do you know how much people are paying for rent, on average? Why is there such a considerable price difference from the houses “on the hill” in comparison to the “cheapies”. Would it be difficult to find tenants, or easy, as there are so many miners? Do the miners generally live there or fly in/out? Lots of questions, sorry!!!
Thank you again
D&L []Hi david,
Off the top of my head, the cheap +cf houses used to sell around 50k, now probably around 80 to 90 k rent I gguess is around 100pw. I honestly haven’t had too much of a look at the prices, rent and vacancies too much as I don’t tend to agree with investing in small towns with little potential.
I could probably try and find out the kind of people who rent etc. if you are really interestted. My guess would be that most miners with a bit of dough would live in bowen (much nicer and I would consider investing here.)
I mentioned that the houses on the hill were nicer as they had a view and were generally newer but I don’t know about the prices.
Ask away.
JOsh
Originally posted by Davidlud:Is the mine still doing well? How about teachers?
D & L [
]Hi David,
Teachers, as a rental population, are a follower, rather than leader, of demographic changes in a given area.
In otherwords increases in teacher numbers would already have been reflected by a previous general increase in families. At the same time teachers are generally only transferred out after the families have already left.
Derek
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