BUYERS FIRST AGENCY
Location Report
Sunshine Coast
South East Queensland · Kabi Kabi and Jinibara Country. A city
of 382,000 that grew 29 per cent in a decade, and now has to work out what it costs
to live there.
BUYERS FIRST AGENCY
The Sunshine Coast added 86,640 people in ten years. That is a Ballarat, dropped on top of what was already there. The infrastructure is finally catching up, with $5.5 billion of rail committed and a $4 billion CBD being built from scratch at Maroochydore.
Here is the part most reports leave out. Prices went up 174 per cent over that decade and rents went up 80 per cent. The gap between those two numbers is why a typical house here now returns 2.84 per cent gross. That is the lowest yield of any market we look at.
It is a genuine growth market with genuinely painful cash flow, sitting at the top of its cycle. Whether that is right for you depends entirely on what you are trying to do.
2.61 per cent a year, compounded, for a decade. The state government's ShapingSEQ plan has it reaching 565,700 by 2046, which is another 184,000 people needing somewhere to live.
The growth is not babies. Over the last three years natural increase added 1,514 people. Net internal migration added 13,956 and overseas migration added 11,692. People are choosing to move here, mostly from elsewhere in Australia, and they arrive with equity from wherever they sold.
That matters for what you buy. A market driven by interstate migration behaves differently to one driven by local wage growth. The buyer you eventually sell to may well be arriving with a Sydney or Melbourne price in their head.
Median age 43 and a household income of $1,595 a week. Against a typical house at $1.41 million, that is a price to income ratio that only works because so many buyers are not funding it from local wages.
Unemployment at 3.6 per cent against a national 4.23 per cent, and 32,631 jobs added in five years. On the surface the labour market is tight and healthy.
Health care employs almost one in five working residents, anchored by Sunshine Coast University Hospital at Birtinya. It has gone from 450 beds at opening to 738, and serves a catchment above 520,000. That is the single most important employer on the coast and it is not going anywhere.
Construction at 12.1 per cent is the number to keep an eye on. It is high because of what is being built right now. Some of that is a decade-long pipeline and some of it finishes.
The coast has never had a direct heavy rail line into its urban strip. That is the single biggest thing about to change.
Worth being straight about the jobs number. Employment fell by 5,762 in the year to March 2026, even with unemployment at 3.6 per cent. A tight unemployment rate alongside a shrinking job count usually means people leaving the workforce rather than an economy adding capacity. One year is not a trend, but it is not the number you would want if you were relying on local wage growth to push rents.
Sixty kilometres of coastline from Caloundra to Noosa, a hinterland that runs up into Maleny and Montville, and a climate that does most of the selling. This is the product. People are not moving here for the jobs, they are moving here and then finding work.
University of the Sunshine Coast at Sippy Downs anchors tertiary education, with campuses now spread across Moreton Bay and the wider region. Education and training employs 8.8 per cent of working residents. Education and health building approvals ran $189 million in FY26, up from $137 million the year before.
Sunshine Coast University Hospital at Birtinya is the centre of gravity, with the private hospital alongside it and a growing health precinct at Kawana. The Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service picked up an extra $71.2 million and 413 more staff in the 2026-27 state budget.
Thirty five days to sell, 0.12 per cent average discounting, 1.17 per cent vacancy and 2.5 months of inventory. On every measure of scarcity, this market is tight.
| Configuration | Typical price | Rent | Gross yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 bedroom house | $1,058,144 | $645/wk | 3.17% |
| 3 bedroom house | $1,274,723 | $763/wk | 3.11% |
| 4 bedroom house | $1,568,025 | $901/wk | 2.99% |
| 5 bedroom house | $1,739,322 | Too few rentals | — |
Note what happens as you go up the configurations. Another bedroom costs about $293,000 and returns about $138 a week more rent. The yield falls the bigger you buy. If cash flow matters at all to you, the smaller end of this market is the only part that makes arithmetic sense, and units at 3.46 per cent do better than any house.
| Period | Price growth | Rent growth | Yield change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 quarter | +2.49% | +0.52% | -1.92% |
| 1 year | +13.01% | +5.77% | -6.40% |
| 3 years | +34.08% | +20.12% | -10.41% |
| 5 years | +63.49% | +48.94% | -8.90% |
| 10 years | +173.99% | +79.91% | -34.34% |
Data sourced from HtAG Analytics. Houses, to 31 July 2026.
Prices ran 174 per cent over ten years. Rents ran 80 per cent. Gross yield fell 34 per cent as a result, and now sits at 2.84 per cent.
In plain terms, a typical house at $1,410,053 rents for about $40,000 a year. With an 80 per cent loan at current rates the interest alone is well past that, before rates, insurance, management and maintenance. You are funding a substantial shortfall every week and betting on growth to make it worthwhile.
That is not a reason to avoid the coast. It is a reason to be certain about which problem you are solving. If you need the property to pay for itself, this is the wrong postcode and we will tell you that rather than sell you a report about it.
Risk, cashflow and growth scores. HtAG scores the Sunshine Coast house market at 50 out of 100 for lower risk, 65 for cashflow, 49 for capital growth and 55 overall, with a volatility index of 7. Middling on growth despite the run it has just had, which is what you would expect from a market at this point in its cycle.
Fifteen minutes on the phone, no charge. If the numbers in this report do not fit your situation, that is a useful answer too, and you will get it straight.
Book a free 15 minute callHtAG puts Sunshine Coast houses at the peak of the cycle as at July 2026, with a modelled twelve month price range of minus 7 per cent to plus 18 per cent and rents modelled to move about 2.7 per cent.
That range is the whole story. The model is not saying prices fall. It is saying the spread of outcomes has widened, which is what peak means.
What the clock is and is not. It is a model of where a market sits relative to its own history, not a prediction. Markets can hold at peak for years, and the coast has spent much of the last decade near the top of this dial while adding 174 per cent. Treat it as a statement about the odds, not about next year.
On timing. Buying at peak in a market with 2.84 per cent yield gives you the least margin for error available. If growth pauses for three years, you fund the shortfall for three years with nothing to show for it. That is survivable if you planned for it and painful if you did not.
Every project below is committed, with a value and a status. Advocacy and wish lists are not included.
Non-residential building approved on the coast hit $1.24 billion in FY26, up from $624 million in FY25. That is the pipeline showing up in the approvals data rather than in a press release.
Two things to keep honest about. First, the 2032 venues were genuinely at risk. Costs on the two Kawana stadiums jumped from $290 million to $410 million, contracts went unsigned before the state election, and the projects sat inside the LNP government's 100 day review with a real chance of being scrapped. They survived it in March 2025, but anyone quoting them as locked in since 2021 is rewriting history.
Second, health funding. The Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service is receiving 3.5 per cent growth funding in 2026-27 against demand growing at about 6 per cent a year. Its own chief executive described the budget as grim to staff before moderating the comment publicly. When 18 per cent of your local workforce is in health, that gap matters.
And on supply. House approvals have eased three years running, 1,997 in FY24 to 1,859 in FY25 to 1,830 in FY26, against a population adding roughly 9,000 people a year. Approvals are running at 1.44 per cent of existing house stock. That shortage is exactly why prices did what they did, and there is nothing in the data suggesting it resolves soon.
| Project | Value | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Direct Sunshine Coast Rail Line, Stage 1 Beerwah to Caloundra | $5.5B | Delivery from 2026 |
| Maroochydore City Centre 53ha new CBD | ~$4B | Under construction |
| Sunshine Coast Stadium expansion Kawana | $148M | Committed, 2032 venue |
| Sunshine Coast Indoor Sports Centre Kawana | $142M | Committed, 2032 venue |
| Mountain Bike Centre Parklands | Included in venue package | Committed, 2032 venue |
| Sunshine Coast University Hospital Birtinya, 738 beds | +$71.2M in 2026-27 | Operating |
The Sunshine Coast has the fundamentals you want. Population compounding at 2.61 per cent, 1.17 per cent vacancy, approvals falling while demand rises, $5.5 billion of rail and a $4 billion CBD landing over the same decade you would be holding. Ten year growth of 10.6 per cent a year was not luck.
The trade-off is brutal and it is the entire decision. At 2.84 per cent gross on a $1.41 million house you are funding a large weekly shortfall, at the peak of the cycle, with a modelled twelve month range that runs from minus 7 to plus 18 per cent. If your borrowing capacity is tight, or you need this property to carry itself, there are markets that will do more for you with less pain. We would rather say that now than after you have signed.
Dan rings everyone who asks for one of these. You may as well pick the time.
Book the callAbout the data. Market figures are to 31 July 2026. Data sourced from HtAG Analytics. Population, household, industry and building approval figures are ABS, with employment from the Australian Government's Small Area Labour Markets release for the March 2026 quarter. The 2046 population forecast is the Queensland government's ShapingSEQ South East Queensland Regional Plan. Project values and statuses are from the Australian Government's Infrastructure Investment Program, Queensland ministerial statements, Sunshine Coast Council and Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service.
This report is general information only. It does not take account of your objectives, financial situation or needs, and it is not financial, legal or tax advice. Figures are estimates drawn from the sources named above and may be revised. Past growth is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Consider your own circumstances and seek your own advice before acting.
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