AKWENO RESEARCH · SEPTEMBER 2026
Australian Property Investor Research — September 2026
Where Australian property investors are looking and the rental yields they're assessing
Australian property investors are researching opportunities across the country — but their attention isn't evenly distributed.
Akweno's September 2026 Property Investor Research analyses anonymised activity from Australian investors using our rental yield calculator to understand where investors are looking, the balance between major-city and regional research, and the gross rental yields being assessed by prospective buyers and existing property owners.
Unlike surveys of investor sentiment, this research is based on actual investment research activity.
Published October 2026 · Based on September 2026 research activity
September at a glance
Queensland attracted the largest share of location-based investor research in September.
Three in ten location-based searches were focused outside Australia's major cities.
Median gross rental yields assessed by the two investor cohorts were remarkably similar.
Queensland led investor research in September
Queensland attracted the largest share of location-based property investment research in Akweno's September dataset, accounting for 25.0%.
New South Wales and Victoria followed closely, each representing 22.5% of research activity.
Together, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria accounted for 70% of all location-based research in September.
South Australia represented a further 12.5%, while Western Australia accounted for 7.5%.
Smaller volumes of research were recorded in the ACT, Northern Territory and Tasmania.
What it means
The September data shows investor attention spread across Australia rather than concentrating exclusively in New South Wales and Victoria.
Queensland recorded the strongest share of research, although the difference between Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria was modest.
The results should therefore be read as an indication of where Akweno users were researching during September rather than a ranking of Australian investment markets.
30% of investor research was focused on regional Australia
Major-city markets remained the dominant focus in September, accounting for 70% of location-based property research.
However, 30% of research activity was directed towards regional locations, showing that investor interest extended meaningfully beyond Australia's major metropolitan markets.
The balance differed considerably between states.
Victoria was the most metropolitan-focused of the three largest states, with 88.9% of its September research centred on major-city locations.
Regional research represented around one-third of activity in both Queensland and New South Wales.
South Australia showed the strongest regional skew, though this result should be treated as directional.
Directional results
ACT, Northern Territory, Tasmania and Western Australia are flagged “Directional” above. Their individual city/regional percentages are included for transparency but should not be interpreted as representative of broader investor behaviour in those markets.
Buyers and existing owners were assessing similar rental yields
The September data also provides an interesting comparison between people assessing a potential purchase and investors checking a property they already own.
After removing invalid and implausible observations, we compared gross rental yields assessed by prospective buyers against those assessed by existing property owners.
- Average
- 5.53%
- Interquartile range
- 4.28% – 6.12%
- Average
- 5.69%
- Interquartile range
- 4.39% – 6.25%
The distributions are surprisingly close
Prospective buyers assessed a median gross rental yield of 5.13%, compared with 4.87% for existing property owners.
The difference between the two medians was only 0.26 percentage points.
Perhaps more importantly, the middle 50% of each cohort was also very similar.
For prospective buyers, the middle 50% fell between 4.28% and 6.12% gross yield.
For existing owners, the equivalent range was 4.39% to 6.25%.
The September dataset therefore does not show prospective buyers systematically targeting dramatically higher rental yields than those being achieved or assessed by existing owners.
What September tells us
- 1
Investor research was geographically broad
Queensland attracted the largest individual share of research, but no state dominated. Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria were all within a narrow range of one another.
- 2
Regional markets are a meaningful part of investor research
Major cities still accounted for most activity, but 30% of location-based research occurred in regional Australia. Regional research was particularly visible in Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia.
- 3
Buyers weren't simply chasing extreme yields
The median gross rental yield assessed by prospective buyers was 5.13%, only modestly above the 4.87% median recorded by existing owners. The middle 50% of both groups also occupied a very similar yield range.
These results are the starting point for the Akweno Australian Property Investor Research series.
As the dataset grows, future monthly reports will allow us to examine whether these patterns persist, how investor attention shifts between locations and whether the returns being assessed by prospective buyers change over time.
About the data
This report analyses anonymised September 2026 activity from users of Akweno's Australian Rental Yield Calculator.
The objective is to measure genuine property investment research behaviour rather than every interaction with the calculator.
Before analysis, the data was cleaned to:
- include Australian activity only
- exclude users who selected “Just learning”
- include only sessions where an investment purpose relevant to the analysis was available
- remove obvious testing, incomplete or play-around inputs
- remove statistically implausible gross rental yield observations
For the gross rental yield analysis, observations below 1% or above 15% were excluded as unlikely to represent reliable Australian residential rental-yield assessments within this dataset.
The location analysis separately required a usable suburb or location to be recorded, which is a stricter condition than the rental yield analysis.
All published results are aggregated. The report does not identify individual users or individual properties.
How to interpret Akweno research
Akweno Property Investor Research measures behaviour within the Akweno research dataset.
It is not intended to represent every Australian property investor, every property transaction or the Australian property market as a whole.
Smaller state and territory samples should be treated as directional.
The value of the research is in observing what investors using Akweno are actively investigating and, over time, identifying changes in those behaviours.
About Akweno Australian Property Investor Research
Akweno Australian Property Investor Research is a monthly series examining anonymised property-investment research activity.
Rather than asking investors what they might do, we analyse what investors are actively researching — including locations, rental yields and other investment characteristics.
As the dataset develops, future reports will track how these behaviours change over time.
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