Gross rental yield — a year of rent as a share of the purchase price — is the number every property investor starts with. Almost everyone estimates it. In Victoria we don't have to: it's the one state where a real rent (from rental bonds) and a real price (from government sale records) exist for the same suburb, so every yield below is measured, not modelled.
Why only Victoria
A yield needs two real numbers on the same suburb. Victoria's DFFH publishes bond-based median rents and its Department of Transport & Planning publishes median house sale prices — so the two line up. No other state currently publishes both openly. Rather than multiply two estimates and call it a yield, we simply show the one state where the maths is real. Across the 150 Victorian suburbs where both figures exist, the median gross yield is 2.7%.
The highest real gross yields
The top of the table is regional Victoria — the Latrobe Valley, the Goulburn and Wimmera, and the Ballarat–Bendigo belt — where prices are modest but rents hold up.
| Suburb | Gross yield | The maths |
|---|---|---|
| Morwell | 5.9% | $400/wk on $355,000 |
| Horsham | 5.4% | $430/wk on $415,000 |
| Maffra | 5.3% | $450/wk on $445,000 |
| Shepparton | 5.2% | $475/wk on $475,000 |
| North Bendigo | 4.9% | $505/wk on $535,000 |
| Mildura | 4.8% | $480/wk on $520,000 |
| Warragul | 4.8% | $590/wk on $645,000 |
| Melton | 4.6% | $450/wk on $510,000 |
The other end: blue-chip Melbourne
The lowest yields aren't a data glitch — they're the whole point of a blue-chip suburb. In Toorak a $6.9M median house rents for about $650/week: a 0.5% gross yield. You're buying the address and the land's capital growth, not the rental income.
| Suburb | Gross yield | The maths |
|---|---|---|
| Toorak | 0.5% | $650/wk on $6,900,000 |
| Hawthorn | 0.9% | $540/wk on $3,070,000 |
| Brighton | 1.1% | $680/wk on $3,350,000 |
| Kew | 1.1% | $575/wk on $2,700,000 |
What yield does and doesn't tell you
High yield ≠ good investment. A 5.9% gross yield in a regional town says nothing about capital growth, vacancy, or the local economy — and gross yield ignores rates, insurance, management and maintenance, which turn a 5.9% gross into something lower net. It's a starting filter, not an answer. Run any of these through the rental yield calculator to see the net picture, weigh it against negative gearing and your own tax position, and read each suburb page for the demographics and what's-nearby behind the number.
Prefer to explore it visually? The affordability map has a rental-yield layer, and the suburb directory ranks yield across every suburb where the data is real.