Best Cairns suburbs for property investors

Bungalow tops the list, with 61.5% of its occupied dwellings rented. Across the ranking, rental shares run from 31.6% to 65.3%. These 15 suburbs came from a field of 31 eligible Cairns suburbs.

Each eligible Cairns suburb is scored on three factors: 55% rental share (the share of occupied dwellings that are rented, from the ABS 2021 census, ranked as a percentile within Cairns), 25% growth (2016→2021 population and dwelling change combined), and 20% safety (bushfire, crime and flood risks combined).

Not on its own. A high rental share means the tenant pool is large and re-letting is easier — a genuine convenience — but it says nothing about the return. Pair this with the gross rental yield ranking for the return side, and bear in mind that the highest-rental suburbs are often high-density areas where capital growth can lag detached housing.

A suburb needs a resident population of at least 1,000 and a 2021 census tenure record. Suburbs below the threshold or missing census tenure data are excluded, not penalised, so the ranking isn't dominated by tiny outliers.

The top 15 is recomputed whenever the underlying data refreshes. Tenure comes from the ABS census (every five years); the growth and safety inputs refresh alongside their own datasets.