Top 10 Suburbs for Property Investment
Every month, we rank Australian suburbs using our Property Investment Score (PIS): a composite of 8 indicators across demand signals, returns and fundamentals, after two gates on vacancy and yield. Separate rankings for houses and units.
How It Works
Collect Data
We pull suburb data from Cotality (via Your Investment Property and propertyvalue.com.au), SQM Research postcode vacancy, PropTrack regional price tables and official infrastructure sources.
Score & Rank
Suburbs must pass a vacancy gate (1.5% or less) and a yield gate (4.3%+, or sub-$700K with a catalyst), then are scored on demand signals (45%), returns (32%) and fundamentals (23%) for a 0–100 score.
Publish Rankings
Top 10 lists for houses and units, plus supplementary yield, trailing-growth and $1 million screens, with every component score published.
Current methodology: PIS v2.1 (from October 2026)
Measurable inputs are scored 0–100 between fixed anchors, so the same data always produce the same score: vacancy (20%), days on market (13%), price momentum on a published step rule using the suburb's PropTrack quarterly change (12%), gross yield (16%), 12-month sold-median change (8%), affordability (8%), infrastructure on an exact-value rubric (13%) and demographic and supply durability (10%). Lists allow one entry per postcode and at most two per SA4 region, and exclude thin markets, postcodes with fewer than 300 rental properties and single-industry towns (one mining or smelting industry employing 10% or more of working residents at the 2021 Census).
The full formula, anchors, every component score and each entry's sources are in the October 2026 edition's methodology appendix. September 2026 used PIS v2.0 (region-level sale conditions), and the April and May 2026 editions used the original pool-relative method described on those pages.
All Editions
October 2026
LATESTBridgewater (TAS) leads houses and Bungalow (Cairns) leads units on PIS v2.1 — suburb-level momentum, a Census-based single-industry test and a post-CPI interest-cover stress test
Published October 29, 2026
September 2026
Mowbray (TAS) leads houses and Manunda (Cairns) leads units on the new reproducible PIS v2.0 — plus an interest-cover stress test and August entries revised on the latest data
Published September 26, 2026
August 2026
Armadale reclaims #1 houses, Cannington leads units, regionals enter the series — plus the first pick-by-pick scorecard of earlier editions
Published August 15, 2026
May 2026
Adelaide takes #1; post-budget yield thesis confirmed; new Infrastructure Watchlist
Published May 15, 2026
April 2026
Perth & Adelaide Dominate House Rankings; Brisbane Units Surge
Published April 2, 2026
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