I’m going to break down some of the best suburbs in Brisbane for 2024. Now, I’ve just done a massive amount of hard work for you guys, going through over 400 suburbs in Brisbane. I’m super excited about this and bringing you five of the most undervalued and best suburbs to live in Brisbane for the coming year.
Not only do these high rental yield suburbs in Brisbane have incredibly low vacancy rates and great average household incomes, but statistically speaking, they could be undervalued by as much as 30 to 70 percent right now, according to Australia’s leading analysts.
Now, traditionally, in every single capital city in Australia, what happens is prices generally go up first in the high-quality blue chip beachside good suburbs. They go up in the inner city waterfront suburbs, then the inner city and middle ring, so suburbs within sort of 5 to 10ks, and then that growth starts rippling out.
5 Top Suburbs in Brisbane
Goodner
Now, what I love about growing up in Sydney and then moving into Queensland is I’ve seen this happen time and time again in Sydney where nice suburbs sort of 20k from the CBD like Goodnar get completely overlooked or that’s Goodnar, that’s not a great place to live, that’s one of those sorts of suburbs.
Then all of a sudden, the population continues to grow in the city, which, according to the Australian Bureau of Stats, South East Queensland is going to be at six million people within about 25 years from today; start going shit; this is actually really cheap and really close to the city and as a first-time buyer or as a family I can actually get into the best areas to live in Brisbane with great schools, great infrastructure, well below the 600k mark.
So what I love about Goodnar the same as every other best suburb to live in Brisbane at the moment is the vacancy rates are ridiculously low, that’s one third of one percent right now, incomes are okay, percentages of renters like I said is a little bit higher than where I’d like it to be, I’d like it to be sub 35 but there has been a whole bunch of new land released in Goodnar with new houses built in the last 15 years and like any estate in Australia the developers will tell you it’s an owner-occupied estate which is absolute BS.
Basically the developers just want to sell as much of their stuff as quickly as they can through property markers to investors all over Australia and the world so when they build the land and build the first houses it’s always sold to investors which in Goodnar’s case is making the percentage of renters looking much higher than it will be in another 10 to 15 years and in 10 to 15 years those investors will move those properties on and first time, second time families will move into the area and this number will come back below the 35 percent mark which I’ve seen happen all over Australia.
Very, very close to the city, 20k’s because of that it is phenomenally undervalued you know I know suburbs within the same range 20k’s in the town on the north side or the southern side where houses could be between 200 and 500k more expensive right now there’s quite a bit of heat out there at the moment.
that’s not being reflected in the DSR scores in fact it’s gone from nobody looking at this area or part of the city in 2022 to between 10 to 60 groups rocking up to open homes at the moment in the market so I’d say that DSR score will steadily increase right now we’re coming off the back of many months in a row of pretty positive sentiment.
I think we’re heading according to KPMG, the ABC and SBS at the moment for somewhere between about a 10 to maybe even 50 percent growth rate across Australia’s capital cities in the next 12 months or so based on their reports at the moment that are coming out now as always these average house prices don’t tell the full story in reality you’re looking at 500k to 600k to get into the area but what’s also cool is when you take out units townhouses and land the average weekly rents are much better for the household.
so between 450 and 500 bucks a week for the average property in the area but love this suburb again think it’s most people in Brisbane living with a blinder on I think there’s great potential there over the medium to longer term for capital growth great cash flow and very very high quality low maintenance tenant ready properties available in this area right now.
North Beaches
Now another one of the best suburbs of brisbane that I love is on the northern beaches of best rental yield Brisbane around about 24k to the city now I will say that I personally own property in this suburb I still think it’s got incredible upside over the next 15 years what I like about Clontarf is it’s a beachside suburb going through monster gentrification at the moment and has a really nice established private golf course in the area now like always vacancy rates are extremely below and well below two percent incomes are on the rise.
when you look back at the census they’re jumping by about 20 to 25 every single census at the moment again I know a lot of people moving into the area that are bulldozing homes that earn between two and three hundred thousand dollars per year at the moment percentages of renters is changing rapidly so this used to have a much much higher percentage of renters.
when I started to buy it for myself and clients about eight to nine years ago but what we’re seeing now is a transition to many more mums and dads living in the area also got an incredible primary school which is the Grace Lutheran Primary School there my wife went to the high school which is one of the top high schools in north Brisbane close to the city close to the beach so we’re looking at like a future Manly or Cronulla Beach type vibe although there’s not the beautiful breaking waves that there is in Sydney there’s still really really good deep water access for boats with Moreton Bay.
just across the road as well 10-year growth rates are being quite solid as it expects for a quality blue chip beachside area but I think these numbers could be skewed because there’s so many beautiful properties that are being resold down the line there at the moment particularly the ones that have been knocked over and rebuilt I think it may have skewed the data a little bit in the area the DSR scores are extremely low at the moment.
with some demand but soft demand other parts of Brisbane where houses sell for below 600k are like fire right now but these particular parts of the city on the beaches haven’t quite caught that flame yet and therefore represent great buying average house prices range massively like some of these other suburbs at the moment online it’s saying 745k.
but I honestly think that’s an absolute shitbox and it’s taking into account the units and the townhouses in the area so a more realistic entry point is 800k to a mill the type of property that I actually owned personally in the suburb was a vacant piece of land that I subdivided I sold one side I shouldn’t have done so it was a massive mistake and I kept one side so what.
I built personally was like a brand new dual income with a four bedroom two bathroom home on one side that’s renting for 600 bucks a week right now single story with a two bedroom granny flat on the other side that’s running for 420 per week right now so between the rent return the tax benefits I’m receiving through my accountant on that particular property it’s been an incredible return on investment in terms of where you enter for these types of suburbs right now you could pick off a townhouse close to the beach in a small complex.
Rina Hills
now one of my favorite and what I believe is one of the most underbellied suburbs in Brisbane CBD at the moment is Orana Hills just 10 kilometers from the CBD now what I love about this suburb is if you look a couple of kilometers closer in the likes of Kedron or Wable Heights we used to be able to buy property there for clients for around about that 6 to 700k mark now those same properties are worth 1.5 to 2 million dollars.
But this beautiful little neighboring suburb Orana Hills sitting just 10km from the city has gone through some price growth but nowhere near what it potentially can compared to its neighboring suburbs now vacancy rates are extremely low incomes obviously that close to the CBD are extremely high there’s a whole lot of quality schools and quality infrastructure in the area as well but what I love about this particular part of the inner city of Brisbane is the percentage of owner occupiers is extremely high.
you know driving through this area for the last nine years I’ve seen it change so dramatically from like a pretty average little part of the city with some nice houses and some okay ones to a place where literally every fourth home at the moment is being renovated so many places are being knocked down and rebuilt and money is just moving into the area because it’s not just close to the CBD but it feels so far removed in terms of the lifestyle beautiful green bushy a whole bunch of national parks around it and what I love about it is the mountains.
Brisbane cap it in that northwestern corridor so that no future development can occur over the top of that now the 10-year growth rates have been okay the DSR scores look exceptional right now and entry-level buying in Orana Hills. Home selling all the way up to the 1.3 to 1.5 million dollar mark at the moment but in reality when you compare it to neighboring suburbs it’s sensing the dollar still at the moment and I think because of that the rising tide is going to continue to lift this boat in a big way between now and the Olympic Games.
Marsden
Now this next suburb Marsden is in the southern side of Brisbane’s CBD and is around about 25k from the city now this part of Brisbane is very very similar to the northwest of Sydney or the southern shire in Sydney or sort of the north eastern parts of Melbourne now what I love about Marsden is it had a really really bad historical brand name and that’s put a whole lot of investors and owner occupiers off the area for the last 15 years like all of these areas close to the city of Perth Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide etc.
These areas that are often overlooked end up becoming incredible investments because sooner or later like is happening right now people realize they’re super super close to the CBD they’re very close to access to main roads and transport like trains and they actually have quite good school districts and the types of people that used to live there when the house prices were 300k and the rents were 250 a week can no longer afford to be there when the house prices are 550 to 600k and the rents are above 500 a week.
So what we’re seeing in this part of the city which is south Brisbane is a major washing of the tide at the moment like we’ve seen in Sydney and Melbourne in the past now it’s not going to be a perfect area until the average house price gets to between 7 and 800k and the average household income jumps to sort of that 75k to 100k per year but it’s well on its way to that at the moment so the vacancy rates are very very low incomes have jumped massively in the last two census the percentage of renters is still extremely high.
There was a high number of investors that bought this area in the last 15 years because it was so cheap what I think is happening at the is a lot of people are selling out those investments because they’re finally getting their money back people that have been sitting in Brisbane for a long time and we’re mainly buying against owner occupiers and first home buyers that want to live there and raise their kids there because of the proximity to schools transport the CBD and the Gold Coast is only 35 to 40 minutes down the road.
Now the 10-year growth rates have been very very low compared to neighbouring suburbs in fact if you looked at a map of Brisbane there’s a main road that runs from the Gold Coast to the city called the M1 on one side of the highway there’s suburbs like Daisy Hill, Shayla Park etc that have literally doubled in value in the last five years you look across the highway in the likes of the Marslands and the Slacks Creek and they haven’t gone through anywhere near the same amount of growth in the same period of time.
Which I really really like especially because people can easily drive straight across the highway to seven of the top 11 schools in South Brisbane on the other side of the road there now the DSR is perfectly ripe for buying at the moment average house prices are realistically between 550 and 650k right now depending on what you’re after the council is quite supportive for development so if you talk to a town planner and the local council you may be able to look at just a standard single income home but with the right land size frontage and dimensions on the block you might be able to do something a bit more fun like a house.
With a granny flat a duplex or even maybe a subdivision subject to talking with your planners and the council and obviously finding the right builder but areas like this the thing I love about Brisbane right now is because we haven’t gone through the crazy price growth that the likes of parts of Perth Sydney Melbourne Canberra etc have gone through in the last 10 to 15 years places with poor brand names like Marsden that have been forgotten about are still sort of got that little bit of a stigma to them and because of that like.
We’ve seen in so many parts of Sydney and Melbourne we should see some pretty significant price growth in this area over the next 15 years in fact according to a recent article in the Australian Financial Review where seven analysts including some of them from the major banks looked at the average parts of Brisbane in the south here where homes were selling for 600k they’re expecting by the Olympic Games.
Their house prices to go to somewhere between 900k and 1.1 to 1.2 million dollars between now and the Olympic Games now I firstly can’t see that happening who knows what the future holds but that sort of information getting through the media getting through the newspapers getting online and getting through the investment community is going to have a positive upside for suburbs like this as it washes through over time.
Alexander Hills
Next suburb which is on the south eastern beaches of Brisbane called Alexandra Hills is a little diamond mine now this suburb sits in what’s called the Redland Bay Council now what I love about this suburb is the suburbs sitting directly in front of it on the beach have gone up significantly recently and have massive infrastructure.
Which I’ll talk about in a moment coming through shortly but what I love is its neighbouring suburb Almoston has one of the number one schools in all of Brisbane Almoston College at the moment in fact in 2021 and 2022 it was a top five school in Brisbane and in 2023-2024 it’s going to remain a top 10 school so that’s sucking many of the migrants moving to Australia as well as many of the people coming up from Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra.
Since the start of COVID now again Alexandra Hills has an incredibly low vacancy rate below half of one percent which anything under two percent would be considered chronically undersupplied by SQM the average household incomes relative to house prices are phenomenal with the average household almost earning 100k per year at the moment very very high percentage of owner occupiers living in there.
which is actually quite uncommon for a beachside suburb on the east coast of Australia so I love that because people will continue to do what they’re doing now which is renovating knocking down and adding value to their properties what I also love is this beachside area is so close to the city only 20k to the CBD and about 35 minutes in the car 10-year growth rates have been okay DSR score is extremely low at the moment.
This means that not a huge amount of people know about this particular part of the city not a huge amount of people are focusing on it which could give you a significant advantage when negotiating and when buying in the next 12 months average house price is in that 700 to 800k range you can get stuff a little bit cheaper than that that requires a lot of work.
Or you could pay a bit more than that and get something that’s absolutely beautiful typically there’s two types of properties in the suburb not including townhouses and units one of them being renovators you know double-story Queenslanders the other one being sort of the brick tile slab on ground stuff but what I also love is it’s extremely close to Cleveland Cleveland’s has a proposal for a 1.6 billion dollar redevelopment of its foreshore at the moment.
With luxury cafes restaurants accommodation housing and dining in the area it’s going to be an absolute game changer when it comes through for this area of Alexandra Hills which would be straight up the road from it average weekly rents aren’t bad the properties that we buy in that sort of 750 to 850k range in the area are generally renting for 550 through to 700 bucks a week.
We’ve also supported some people at the moment to go buy a home in the area clean that home a little bit up with their property manager and builder and then build a granny flat out the back so it can be an incredible way to get not just medium and long-term capital growth but really strong cash flow based on the current town planning scheme in the area.
