When the coal price falls, Bella Exposito feels the pain. The owner of Moranbah Real Estate in central Queensland has sold only two houses in the past three months.

A few years ago mining towns in regional Australia were experiencing a Sydney-like house boom. Today, their real estate markets are in an epic collapse that would impress the investors portrayed in The Big Short.

At the peak of the mining boom, a fully renovated four-bedroom house in Moranbah sold for $820,000. In November that house went for $170,000.

This week Ms Exposito sold a house bought for $720,000 in 2012 for $130,000.

“We are in very bad shape here. We don’t know what will happen. Everyone is being made redundant,” she says. “Things have definitely got worse in the past year.”

I’m being realistic and the prices have come down a lot, but nothing is moving.Bella Exposito, Moranbah Real Estate

The median value of residential land in Moranbah has fallen by more than 40 per cent in the past year to $74,000, according to the latest land valuation figures released by the Queensland government.

Southern investors who flocked to the town at the height of the coal boom are now frantically looking to offload their properties, but the problem is no one is buying.

The rental market is also flat as thousands of workers from nearby mines have been let go as mines close down or substantially scale back their operations.

Ms Exposito, who is making a tilt at local council to make ends meet, also has houses for rent on her books in Moranbah, Dysart and in Mackay that have sat vacant for two to three years. Rents have plummeted from $2000 a week to $180 a week.

“I’m being realistic and the prices have come down a lot, but nothing is moving. There have been a lot of bankruptcies and it’s the banks who are trying to sell the houses now,” she said.

Investors take a bath

Investors who took a punt on the never-ending coal boom have taken a bath with land valuations falling by almost half in some central Queensland mining towns, according to the latest figures from Queensland’s Valuer-General.

While the mining towns of Moranbah, Dysart and Clermont rode the property wave during the coal boom – with a four-bedroom house going for $1.25 million at the peak of boom – they have now fallen back to earth as 22,000 workers leave the industry.

Figures from CoreLogic RP Data in 2015 found the median value of a home in Moranbah, about 200 kilometres west of Mackay, had fallen 66 per cent in the past three years from $751,989 to $251,933.

Nebo, whose famous pub used to be full of mining workers before the price of coal fell through the floor, also took a hit, with a 30 per cent fall in land values to $56,000.

Other mining towns in the Bowen Basin also experienced a dramatic plunge in land values, including Coppabella (down 29.7 per cent), Dysart (down 30.2 per cent) and Middlemount (down 29.7 per cent).

In the Isaac Regional Council’s area, which takes in a big chunk of the Bowen Basin west of Mackay, the median house price fell by an average of 26.6 per cent to $69,000.

Further north in Collinsville, a quintessential mining town where most of the jobs at Glencore’s coal mine were slashed just before Christmas, land values have fallen by a staggering 54 per cent.

Accommodation demand dwindles

Queensland Valuer-General Neil Bray said the value of properties in mining towns had been hit hard in recent years which had hurt investors who flooded the market when the price of coal was soaring.

“Residential markets throughout the Isaac Regional Council have continued to decline with difficult operating conditions within the mining industry resulting in a substantial lowering of confidence, particularly amongst investors,” Mr Bray said.

“There has been a marked decline in sales volumes as accommodation demand dwindles, which can be directly linked to job losses, mine closures and falling commodity prices.”

“For the coal mining towns, such as Dysart, Middlemount, Moranbah, Clermont, Nebo and Glenden, reductions in value have been moderate to significant.”

In Townsville – which is sweating on the future of Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel – there was insufficient movement in the residential property market to even trigger a new land valuation, according to the Department of Natural Resources and Mines.

Mining services towns such as Mackay (down 6 per cent) and Gladstone (down 1.6 per cent) have also taken a hit in recent years.

Further north in Bowen, which was supposed to be the home of a massive expansion of Abbot Point coal terminal, residential land values have plunged almost 30 per cent in the past year.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s jobs taskforce met in Mackay on Wednesday to discuss way to create jobs to fill the vacuum left by the end of the mining boom.

The Queensland Resources Council has suggested a short-term reduction in royalties and fast-tracked approval times for mining projects in the Galilee Basin, but it’s going to do little to bring workers back to struggling mining towns.