Eight Mile Plains Tops Brisbane Yield Rankings at 5.2%

Yields across 129 Brisbane suburbs range from 5.2% in Eight Mile Plains down to under 2% in the premium inner pockets that anchor the city's reputation. That spread, more than three percentage points from top to bottom, is wider than the gap between short-term rental and long-term rental at the city level. In other words, where you buy in Brisbane matters more than how you rent it out. The pattern is consistent: outer southern suburbs lead on cash yield, inner premium suburbs lead on capital growth, and the middle band trades a little of each. This ranking shows which Brisbane suburbs deliver the strongest gross yields and explains the geography behind the numbers.

Eight Mile Plains Leads Brisbane on Yield at 5.2%

The top of the table is dominated by southern Brisbane suburbs sitting between the M1 motorway and the Logan corridor, where entry prices stay below the city median of about $1.30m but rents track close to the metro average.

Gross yields = annual income / sale price. Based on 3-bed house medians. The dashboard shows every property type and bedroom count.

Why the Top Suburbs Lead: Affordability Plus Rental Demand

Eight Mile Plains leads at 5.2% because it combines a sub-median entry price of roughly $766,000 with rental demand that holds up against suburbs costing twice as much. The suburb sits along the Pacific Motorway corridor with direct bus links to the Brisbane CBD, plus the QEII Hospital precinct and Westfield Garden City employment hub on its doorstep. Tenants paying around $760 a week for a 3-bed house here are typically families and hospital staff who would face a much larger price gap than rent gap if they tried to live closer to the river. That mismatch is exactly the dynamic that produces yield outperformance.

Rocklea - Acacia Ridge and Coopers Plains follow the same logic at slightly higher entry prices. Rocklea - Acacia Ridge is a south-Brisbane industrial-and-residential mix where the housing stock is older and prices reflect that, but the rental pool is deep thanks to proximity to the Brisbane Markets, the Acacia Ridge freight terminal and the Sunnybank commercial belt. Coopers Plains sits next to the Griffith University Nathan campus and the Princess Alexandra Hospital, both of which generate steady, year-round tenant demand. These are classic long-term rental suburbs: the tenant base is local workers and students, not visitors, so the short-term rental yield in the right-hand column matters less to the typical investor here than the consistency of the long-term rental yield.

Kuraby is the cheapest entry point in the top five at roughly $695,000, which is well below the Brisbane median of about $1.30m. It pairs that low price with a tenant pool drawn from the surrounding Logan and Sunnybank growth areas. Pallara - Willawong rounds out the top five as a newer outer-southern release area where housing stock is newer (lower maintenance, higher building depreciation allowances) and rents are catching up to the rest of the southern band.

The Yield-Price Trade-Off Defines Brisbane

Brisbane illustrates the inverse relationship between price and yield more sharply than most Australian capitals. The cheapest suburbs in the dataset clear 5.2% on long-term rental, while the most expensive inner-river suburbs sit closer to 2%. Rents do not fall as fast as prices when you move outward; a 3-bed house in Eight Mile Plains rents for around $760 a week, while a 3-bed house in a riverside suburb might cost three times as much to buy but rent for less than double. The yield gap is the arithmetic result.

An investor entering at about $766,000 in Eight Mile Plains versus about $1.30m at the Brisbane median is taking a very different capital-risk profile. The smaller cheque is easier to finance, recovers faster from a soft year and produces more spendable cash. The larger cheque relies on Brisbane's long-running capital growth thesis, the same thesis that has lifted inner suburbs by double-digit percentages in some recent years, to deliver an acceptable total return. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions.

Premium Suburb Context: What You Pay For Lower Yield

For context, here is how some of Brisbane's most in-demand suburbs compare. These are established suburbs where investors typically accept lower yields in exchange for capital growth, liquidity and tenant quality.

High-demand Brisbane suburbs for context. Same methodology as the yield ranking above.

These suburbs yield less on long-term lease because buyers pay for amenity (river frontage, character housing, school catchments, walkable village centers) and for the historical capital growth those features have produced. The short-term rental yield column tells a more interesting story for a few of them: inner-city and tourism-leaning suburbs can lift the gross yield through nightly letting because visitors will pay for location in a way that long-term tenants cannot. Whether that lift is enough to justify the higher entry price, and the operational complexity of running a short-term rental, is the central question this dashboard helps you answer property-by-property.

What the Ranking Doesn't Show

A high gross yield can mean depressed prices rather than strong rents. The same suburb that screens as a top performer on yield may have softer capital growth, a thinner buyer pool on exit and a tenant base more exposed to economic shocks. Brisbane's outer southern band has historically produced lower price growth than the inner ring, and that gap matters more over a 10-year hold than the 1 to 2 percentage points of extra annual yield. Total return is income plus growth, and the ranking only addresses the income side.

Vacancy risk also varies by suburb, and the table cannot show that. The yields above assume the city-level long-term rental occupancy of 99%. In reality, suburbs near hospitals, universities and major employment centers tend to fill faster than the metro average, while outer suburbs with thinner rental pools can sit empty for several weeks between tenants. Data age is the other caveat: medians reflect the rolling sales window, so a suburb that has run hard in the last quarter may show a lower price (and therefore higher yield) than its current asking-price reality.

View Brisbane in the dashboard → Free preview · every bedroom count and property type

Brisbane Yields Sit Below State and National Medians

The Brisbane city-median long-term rental yield of 3.0% sits below both the Queensland state median of 3.9% and the Australian national median of 4.0%. That is the cost of buying in a capital city where the median 3-bed house at about $1.30m runs well above the state median of about $874,000 and the national median of about $833,000. The top Brisbane suburb at 5.2% comfortably beats the national average, while the lowest-yielding inner suburbs trail it by a wide margin. For investors who want Brisbane exposure without giving up cash yield, the suburb selection in the table above is doing most of the work.

Negative Gearing Tilts the After-Tax Numbers Toward Long-Term Rental

The pre-tax yields shown above understate the appeal of Brisbane long-term rental for higher-income investors, because Australia's negative gearing rules let rental losses offset salary income. A long-term rental property in Brisbane often runs at a modest cash-flow loss in the early years (mortgage interest plus operating costs exceed rent), and that loss becomes a deduction against taxable income. At a 45% marginal tax rate (income above $190,000), each $1 of rental loss saves $0.45 in tax. At 30% (income $45,000 to about $135,000), it saves $0.30. A high-yield suburb like Eight Mile Plains may produce only a small loss or none at all, while a premium inner suburb at twice the price will generate a much larger deductible loss.

Depreciation amplifies the effect for newer properties. Capital works deductions can be claimed at up to 2.5% per year of qualifying construction costs, depending on building age and a quantity surveyor’s depreciation schedule of the building's construction cost for buildings less than 40 years old. On a Brisbane house with a depreciable building value of around $925,000, that produces an annual non-cash deduction of roughly $23,000, on top of the actual cash loss. Fixtures and fittings depreciation (air conditioning, carpets, blinds, dishwashers, hot water systems) adds further deductions in the early years. None of this is free money: the cash loss is real, and the property has to grow in value enough to compensate. But for investors comparing Brisbane short-term stays against long-term rental, the tax treatment frequently tilts the after-tax outcome toward long-term lease even when the pre-tax short-term rental income looks higher. The 50% capital gains tax discount on properties held more than 12 months applies equally to both strategies on exit.

The dashboard calculates your after-tax position including negative gearing and depreciation based on your income; enter your salary to see how the tax treatment changes the short-term rental versus long-term rental comparison for your tax bracket.

Regulatory Note for Brisbane Short-Term Rental

Brisbane permits short-term rentals with relatively light restrictions, but a new annual permit regime is incoming. Brisbane (C) permits short-term rentals with minimal regulatory restrictions. Details: Brisbane Short Stay Accommodation Local Law commences 1 July 2026. Annual permit required for all non-owner-occupied short-term rentals (properties rented <90 consecutive days). 24/7 contact person must respond to complaints within 60 minutes. Public liability insurance and house rules required. Permit number must appear in advertisements. Penalties up to about $142,000 for non-compliance. Three-strikes permit revocation. Exemptions: hotels, serviced apartments with on-site manager, owner-occupied (home-hosted). No night cap. Higher council rates (~65% surcharge) already apply to short-term rentals properties. View official regulations If you are buying with a short-term rental thesis, factor in the permit obligations and the higher Brisbane City Council rates surcharge (around 65%) that already applies to short-term rental properties. There is no night cap, which sets Brisbane apart from Greater Sydney's 180-night limit on non-hosted short-term rentals.

Data reflects market conditions as of May 2026. These are city and suburb medians; individual properties differ. The dashboard shows suburb-level data for every bedroom count and property type, plus the after-tax cash flow for your specific income.

For methodology detail see the market score methodology and data sources. After All Costs, Gold Coast 3-Bed Houses More Than Double Long-Term Yield on Airbnb covers the same question for a neighboring South East Queensland market. Queensland Rental Investment Insights works through what to buy at the property-type level for Brisbane. Explore rental data in the dashboard for the suburb-level numbers behind this ranking.

This information is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial or legal advice. Regulations and market conditions change frequently. Verify current rules with local authorities before making investment decisions.