Lobethal - Woodside Leads Adelaide Yields at 4.4%

Yields across 16 suburbs in the City of Adelaide range from 4.4% in Lobethal - Woodside down to under 3% across the inner-city and premium hills stock, where the city median 3-bed house price sits at $1,434,960. WHERE you buy in Adelaide materially changes the running yield you can achieve, so location selection matters alongside the short-term vs long-term rental decision. This ranking shows which suburbs lead on gross yield, and why Adelaide's yield pattern rewards outer plains and hills fringes over the blue-chip core.

Lobethal - Woodside Tops the Yield Ranking at 4.4%

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

Why the Top Three Suburbs Lead on Yield

Lobethal - Woodside leads at 4.4% because its entry price of $775,840 sits well below the city median while rents hold firm at $659 per week ($2,855 per month). The Adelaide Hills pocket around Lobethal and Woodside attracts a mix of tree-change families and commuters using the South Eastern Freeway, and rental demand is supported by local schools, trades work, and Adelaide Hills wine-region employment. This suburb also carries a credible short-term rental angle: hills tourism around Cleland, Mount Lofty, and the cellar-door circuit pushes the short-term yield higher than in most outer-plain suburbs, so owners willing to manage a holiday-rental listing can layer that revenue over a strong long-term baseline.

Mallala delivers 4.3% on the strength of the cheapest entry price in the ranked set at $634,658. The far-northern plains around Mallala are peri-urban rather than tourist-oriented, so the investment case here is squarely long-term rental: affordable housing stock, workforce tenants tied to the northern industrial belt and defence precincts, and a capital outlay that roughly halves the equity requirement compared with inner-city stock. Short-term rental makes less sense this far from central Adelaide or any obvious tourism node, which is why its short-term yield lags.

Lewiston - Two Wells rounds out the top three at 4.2%. Lewiston and Two Wells sit on Adelaide's outer northern edge, where land sizes are generous and rents are anchored by a stable tenant base of families and agricultural workers. It is firmly a long-term rental suburb: holiday demand is thin, but vacancy risk is typically low and operating costs are modest compared with running a short-stay listing.

Cheaper Suburbs Yield More Because Rent Does Not Fall as Fast as Price

An investor buying at $775,840 in Lobethal - Woodside is taking on roughly half the capital exposure of an investor buying at the city median of $1,434,960, and collecting a yield of 4.4% against a city median of 2.8%. That is a very different capital-risk profile: less equity at risk, a stronger running yield, but a narrower path to strong capital growth. Blue-chip inner Adelaide and the premier hills corridors trade at compressed yields precisely because buyers are paying for scarcity, amenity, and expected appreciation rather than current income.

The inverse relationship between price and yield comes down to one dynamic: rent does not fall as fast as price. A house that costs 45% of the city median does not rent for 45% of the city-median rent, it typically rents for 60% to 75% of it. That asymmetry is what opens the yield gap. It is also why pure yield-maximisers drift toward outer and semi-rural pockets, while growth-focused investors accept a lower running yield for well-located, liquid stock with stronger historical appreciation.

Adelaide's Premium Suburbs Trade Income for Amenity and Growth

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

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

These premium suburbs yield less on long-term rental because buyers pay a premium for CBD proximity, private-school catchments, parklands, beaches, and established amenity, and that premium does not flow through one-for-one to rent. For short-term rental, the picture can shift: well-located premium suburbs near the coast, the city, or the hills tasting circuit often show meaningfully stronger short-term yields, because holiday-rental guests will pay directly for the amenity that the long-term rental market under-rewards. Check each row in the table above, the short-term yield column often tells a different story from the long-term one.

What the Ranking Does Not Show

Yield is annual rent divided by price, so a high yield can mean depressed prices as easily as strong rents. Capital growth is invisible in this ranking: premium Adelaide suburbs have historically delivered stronger price appreciation than outer fringes, and over a 10- to 15-year hold, total returns (income plus growth) can flip the ordering completely. Vacancy risk is another blind spot. Some high-yield suburbs have thin rental pools, meaning a single vacant month can erase a quarter of the year's yield advantage. Data age matters too, since medians lag fast-moving suburbs and can understate recent rent growth or price growth.

A yield table is a starting point, not a verdict. The right suburb depends on whether you are optimising for cash flow now, capital growth later, or a balance of the two, and on how much vacancy and maintenance risk you can absorb. Adelaide sits in the appreciation-play category for most of its premium stock, which is why running yields look compressed at the city level.

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

Adelaide's Yield Range vs State and National Benchmarks

The top-ranked Adelaide suburb at 4.4% sits above the South Australia median of 4.0% and the Australian national median of 4.0%. The city-median yield of 2.8%, by contrast, is well below both benchmarks, which is exactly what you would expect from a capital-city council area dominated by premium freestanding houses and heritage stock. Adelaide's yield ranking rewards investors willing to step out of the blue-chip core; the trade-off is capital growth exposure, which is why premium-market investors are often willing to accept a 2.8% running yield in exchange for the appreciation thesis the inner city and foothills carry.

Negative Gearing and Depreciation Can Tip the After-Tax Ranking

Australian investors need to factor tax into the suburb decision, because negative gearing and building depreciation can materially change the after-tax ranking of high-price versus high-yield suburbs. Negative gearing allows any cash-flow loss on an investment property, where mortgage interest and costs exceed rental income, to be offset against your salary or wage income, reducing your taxable income. This overwhelmingly benefits long-term rental investors, because investment properties often run at a modest cash loss in the early years of ownership.

The benefit scales with your marginal tax rate. At a 30% marginal rate (taxable income roughly $45,000 to $135,000), every $1 of rental loss saves you $0.30 in tax. At 37% ($135,000 to $190,000), it saves $0.37. At 45% (income above $190,000), it saves $0.45. A premium inner-Adelaide property showing a $15,000 pre-tax loss can therefore deliver a $4,500 to $6,750 tax refund, narrowing or reversing its apparent yield disadvantage against a higher-yielding outer suburb.

Depreciation amplifies the effect. The building depreciation allowance (2.5% per year of the building's construction cost, for buildings less than 40 years old) and fixtures and fittings depreciation (appliances, air conditioning, carpets, blinds) are non-cash deductions, meaning they reduce your taxable income without requiring any actual cash outlay. For newer stock, depreciation can add tens of thousands of dollars of deductions across the first decade of ownership. Short-term rental properties that run profitably from day one miss most of the negative-gearing benefit, because there is no loss to deduct in the first place. The CGT discount (50% on properties held more than 12 months) applies equally to both strategies.

This is where the dashboard becomes useful: it calculates your after-tax position including negative gearing, building depreciation at 2.5% of building value, and your marginal tax rate based on the income you enter. Enter your salary to see how the tax treatment changes the short-term rental versus long-term rental comparison for your specific bracket, and how it shifts the effective ranking of Adelaide suburbs once tax is included.

Regulation: What to Check Before You Buy

Short-term rental rules in Adelaide are state-based and locally enforced. Adelaide (C) permits short-term rentals with minimal regulatory restrictions. **Details:** Limited specific City of Adelaide regulations found. State framework: Short Term Holiday Rental Accommodation Bill 2021. Planning approval requirements vary by development plan. Contact City of Adelaide directly for local policies. [View official regulations](https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/lz?path=/b/archive/short+term+holiday+rental+accommodation+bill+2021_hon+zoe+bettison+mp). Verify current state and council rules before investing; this is an active legislative area in Australia. Owners running holiday rentals should also confirm strata rules where the property is a unit, and check local council requirements before listing on Stayz or Airbnb.

Stamp Duty and Transaction Costs Widen the Gap

Investors also need to factor in stamp duty and conveyancing when sizing up an Adelaide entry. South Australian stamp duty escalates sharply with purchase price, so the gap between a $775,840 outer purchase and a $1,434,960 inner-city purchase widens further once transaction costs are included. Check with your solicitor or conveyancer for an exact figure on any specific property. You can use the dashboard to model scenarios across bedroom counts and property types, and see how net yields change once running costs, tax, and financing are layered in. For methodology detail, see the market score methodology and data sources pages.

Data reflects market conditions as of April 2026.

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.