Brisbane edges ahead of Sunshine Coast on higher occupancy (36% vs 30%).
Head-to-head metrics
| Brisbane | Sunshine Coast | |
|---|---|---|
| Median occupancy | 36% | 30% |
| Median daily rate | £97 | £166 |
| Median RevPAR | £22 | £29 |
| Active listings | 4,968 | 5,416 |
| YoY occupancy | — | +11.9 pts |
| YoY daily rate | — | +8.5% |
| Regulation risk | — | — |
| Annual night cap | None | None |
| License required | No | No |
Full analysis: Brisbane vs Sunshine Coast
Brisbane finishes clearly ahead of Sunshine Coast on our composite of occupancy, revenue per available night and regulation risk — and it is the calendar rather than the price tag doing the work. Brisbane's listings run at 36% occupancy against 30% in Sunshine Coast, worth 6 extra points of booked calendar every year. Brisbane sits at the cheaper end at £97 a night against £166, which lowers the bar for filling shoulder-season dates and usually tracks a lower purchase price too. Those gaps are wide enough to survive a normal year's variance.
The two markets reach their revenue by different routes, which is what makes this pairing worth reading rather than just tabulating. Sunshine Coast is the rate market: £166 a night against £97, some 71.3% more, but it converts fewer of those nights at 30% occupancy. Brisbane is the volume market, filling 36% of its calendar at a lower headline price. Revenue per available night settles it: £29 in Sunshine Coast against £22. Rate is what you advertise; RevPAR is what you bank.
That verdict needs a caveat, because Sunshine Coast is not simply the weaker market of the two. Revenue per available night — rate and occupancy combined, the figure that actually reaches an owner — is 33.1% higher in Sunshine Coast: £29 against £22. Across a full year the median Sunshine Coast listing grosses £10,704 against £8,040 in Brisbane. If your model leans on that dimension, the ordering above can reasonably flip.
Neither Brisbane nor Sunshine Coast currently has a verified short-term rental regulation record in our register, so the comparison above is a yield comparison only. Regulation is the single largest source of downside in this asset class — an unverified market is an unpriced risk, not an absent one.
The two calendars also behave differently. Brisbane peaks in November at 62.3% and bottoms in January at 34.8%; Sunshine Coast runs from 62.1% in October down to 35% in March. Both swing by a similar amount across the year, so neither offers meaningfully steadier cash flow than the other.
Who each suits, then. Brisbane suits buyers who want a conventional, lightly regulated entry and whose economics survive high turnover — more bookings, more cleans, more guest contact per pound of revenue. Sunshine Coast answers to the same regulatory profile, so the split between them is operational rather than legal: it is the market for an owner who can hold rate through the shoulder season rather than discounting to fill the calendar. Every figure above comes from the same Inside Airbnb snapshot pipeline on both sides, filtered to listings with at least one booking in the last twelve months. Occupancy medians are drawn from 2,775 active Brisbane listings and 3,542 in Sunshine Coast.
Frequently asked questions
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