Moranbah doesn’t have the same amount of headline grabbing resource projects that Gladstone has for example, but it’s a suburb whose yields and potential for future growth certainly warrant a closer look.
Given its Bowen Basin location, the main industry here is mining, and Moranbah Real Estate principal (and former mine worker) Bella Exposito notes that it’s an industry that’s currently very much in expansion mode.
“The mines are expanding. They’re looking at having 16,000 workers in 2012, and there are only 11,000 at the moment, so that’s 5,000 new residents in one year.”
And with rental properties already getting snapped up like hotcakes by the town’s tenants, this is a town whose excellent yields could be set for a major boost.
“We advertised three rental properties today and by about 10 o’ clock they were all taken,” explains Exposito. “Tenants are mainly families – about 95%. And the rest are single people that are in shared housing – three or four to a house.”
She admits however that Moranbah is a high-risk high-reward investment hotspot, likening it to the share market.
She estimates that the area’s property market is dominated by landlords – with as much as 95% of properties being sold to interstate property investors – and points out that the health of Moranbah’s rental market is tied to that of the local mining industry.
“Moranbah had a very strong increase in 2008, and then in 2009 it crashed,” she explains. “But now it has some of the highest investment returns in Australia.
“It has stabilised at the moment, so a lot of new people are now purchasing for investment purposes. Why would you invest in Brisbane or Sydney, where property’s returning 4%, when you can get 12-13% here?”
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