Launceston Tops Cornwall Yields at 5.7%, Double the Coast

Cornwall is not one rental market. It is two. Inland market towns along the Tamar valley and the A30 corridor sit at one end of the price scale, where a typical 3-bed house trades for about £243,000 and rents at about £1,200 a month. On the other end sit the picture-postcard coastal villages of the south and north coasts, where the same property commands double or more but rents fail to keep pace. The result: a yield map that rewards inland buyers and penalises anyone chasing a sea view.

Inland Market Towns Dominate the Top of the Yield Table

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

Launceston, Torpoint and Liskeard Lead Because Entry Prices Are Low, Not Because Rents Are High

Launceston (PL15) tops the county table at 5.7% because its median sale price of about £243,000 sits well below the county median, while rental demand stays steady from commuters serving Plymouth and the Tamar valley employers. The town sits on the A30 just inside the Cornish border, meaning it draws working tenants who want Cornwall addresses without Cornish coastal prices. Rents of about £1,200 a month are not exceptional in absolute terms; the yield comes from the denominator, not the numerator.

Torpoint (PL11) tells a similar story through a different lens. The town sits opposite Plymouth across the Tamar and functions effectively as a Plymouth commuter suburb with a Cornwall postcode. Naval dockyard workers, Plymouth hospital staff, and cross-river commuters form a deep and stable tenant pool that is insulated from holiday-season volatility. At about £237,000 and about £1,100 a month, Torpoint is more of a buy-to-let suburb than a holiday let suburb, a distinction the two yield columns in the table make visible.

Liskeard (PL14) rounds out the top three at 5.6%. Sitting on the A38 midway between Plymouth and Bodmin, Liskeard benefits from the same logic: affordable housing stock, a working tenant base drawn from nearby market towns and light industrial employment, and no meaningful coastal premium baked into the prices. It is likely to perform best on long-term letting, where tenant stability matters more than peak-season rates.

The Yield-Price Trade-off Is Sharper in Cornwall Than in Most UK Counties

The inverse relationship between sale price and gross yield holds everywhere, but Cornwall illustrates it in its purest form. An investor entering at about £243,000 in Launceston (PL15) versus the county median of about £304,000 faces a very different capital-risk profile. The inland buyer ties up less cash, earns a higher proportional return on that cash, and is less exposed to a correction in second-home demand, which is the single largest price driver on the coast.

Coastal Cornwall prices carry a lifestyle premium and a capital-growth thesis that the rental market does not ratify. A £500,000-plus cottage in Padstow, St Mawes or Mousehole rents at a small multiple of what a £230,000 Launceston house does, not at double. Rents scale with local wages and holiday letting revenue; prices scale with national second-home demand. When those two forces diverge, the yield gap widens, which is exactly the pattern visible across Cornwall's 315 postcode areas.

Coastal and Premium Postcodes Trade Yield for Capital Growth and Peak-Season Revenue

For context, here is how some of Cornwall's most in-demand postcode areas compare. These are established areas where investors typically accept lower yields in exchange for capital growth, liquidity, and the option to generate peak-season holiday let income at rates the inland market simply cannot command.

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

Premium Cornish postcode areas yield less on long-term letting because buyers are pricing in amenity, scarcity of coastal stock, and multi-decade capital growth, not the current rent roll. The holiday let column changes the picture in some of these areas: a coastal cottage running at reasonable occupancy through the April-to-October season can close a meaningful portion of the yield gap against the inland leaders, though it does so with more operational work and more seasonal revenue risk.

What the Ranking Does Not Show

Gross yield is a useful ranking tool, but it hides several risks that matter in Cornwall specifically. A high yield can mean depressed prices rather than strong rents, and in some of the smaller inland towns the rental pool is thin enough that a single vacancy can represent several months of lost income. The medians in the table smooth over that variance. Capital growth is the second missing variable: the premium coastal postcodes have historically delivered stronger price appreciation than the inland market towns, so a total-return comparison (income plus growth) would narrow the gap considerably. Data age is the third: Cornwall's second-home market moves quickly in both directions, and any median-based ranking will lag a fast-turning local market by several months.

The holiday let column also deserves a cautionary note. The furnished holiday let tax regime was abolished from April 2025, meaning holiday lets and buy-to-let are now taxed on an equivalent basis. That removes a previously significant tax advantage and makes the financial comparison between the two strategies more important than ever. Outside Greater London there is no 90-night cap, but converting a residential property to holiday let use may require planning permission as a change of use, and Cornwall Council has been tightening its stance on this in the most pressured coastal areas.

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

Cornwall's Top Postcode Areas Beat the South West Average, Not the UK Average

The county-level yield of 4.1% sits below the UK median of 5.7% and close to the South West regional median of 4.4%. The inland market towns at the top of the ranking, however, clear the regional benchmark comfortably and close the gap on the UK one: Launceston (PL15) at 5.7% matches the UK average and outpaces the regional figure, while Torpoint (PL11) at 5.6% sits just below the UK average but comfortably above the regional one. The lowest-yielding coastal postcodes, by contrast, trail the national figure by a meaningful margin. This is the core message of the suburb ranking: Cornwall's yield story depends entirely on which half of the county you are buying in.

For context on how Cornwall compares with neighbouring holiday markets and other UK counties with similar coastal-versus-inland splits, see our companion pieces on where to buy and on costs, of Cornwall property investment. Readers can also review the data sources and market score methodology used to build these rankings, and explore rental data in the dashboard for the specific postcode-level numbers not shown in the tables here.

Data reflects market conditions as of June 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.