MacGregor Rental Market Snapshot — October 2026
MacGregor is a small suburb: about 2.7 square kilometres, 12 kilometres from the Brisbane GPO, with four parks covering roughly 15.5% of its area. It holds 1,789 houses and 351 units, and its population grew 2.3% between the 2016 and 2021 Censuses, from 5,844 to 5,980 residents. Houses make up more than eight in ten dwellings, and the market data reads accordingly.
The median house value stands at $1,504,188. Houses that sold over the past 12 months recorded a median price of $1,471,500, with a lower quartile of $1,295,000 and an upper quartile of $1,728,500. Value growth has cooled sharply: on Cotality's series, house values were up about 21% over the 12 months to January 2026, but only about 6.5% over the 12 months to July 2026. Asking rents kept rising regardless — the median asking rent for houses reached about $780 a week by July 2026, up about 8% on a year earlier. Gross house yield on Cotality's series is about 2.6%, down from about 2.8% a year earlier.
MacGregor's unit market is small enough that its figures need care. There are 351 units in the suburb and only 12 were listed for sale across the past 12 months, so a handful of transactions moves every statistic. On the numbers available, the median unit value is $793,315 and units were asking about $575 a week by July 2026, up only about 2% in a year, for a gross yield of about 4.5%. Treat those as indicative rather than precise.
Houses take longer to sell here than in the neighbouring suburbs in the same October report set: median days on market was about 25 days over the 12 months to July 2026, against 19 to 23 days in Calamvale, Runcorn and Eight Mile Plains. Only 46 houses were listed for sale across the past 12 months — about 2.6% of the housing stock — and at 16 October 2026 there were 12 houses and 6 units on the market.
| Metric | Houses | Units |
|---|---|---|
| Stated figures — as at 16 October 2026 | ||
| Median value | $1,504,188 | $793,315 |
| Median sale price (12 months) | $1,471,500 | $725,000* |
| Lower / upper quartile sale price | $1,295,000 / $1,728,500 | $720,000 / $805,118* |
| Total dwellings | 1,789 | 351 |
| Listed for sale (12 months) | 46 | 12 |
| Currently listed for sale | 12 | 6 |
| Trend series — 12 months to July 2026 | ||
| Median asking rent | $780 | $575 |
| 12-month rent growth | +8% | +2% |
| Gross rental yield | 2.6% | 4.5% |
| 12-month value growth | +6.5% | +15% |
| Median days on market (sales) | 25 days | Insufficient data |
*MacGregor unit figures rest on very few sales — 12 units were listed for sale in 12 months — and are indicative only.
Data: Cotality (RP Data) Suburb Profile Report, Macgregor QLD 4109, prepared 16 October 2026. The report carries two reference dates: headline counts and median values are stated as at 16 October 2026, while the rent, yield, value-growth and days-on-market series run to July 2026 — Cotality's index series carry an approximately three-month lag. Trend figures are read from those series and rounded. Gross yield is Cotality's indicative series and will not exactly match a figure calculated from the headline median value. Demographic figures: ABS Census 2021.
Who Rents in MacGregor — and Why It Matters
About 38.8% of MacGregor dwellings were rented at the 2021 Census, up from 35.4% in 2016: the owner-occupier share fell from 64.6% to 61.2% over those five years. The predominant age group in the suburb is 20 to 29, households are primarily couples without children, and residents typically work in professional occupations. Average length of ownership is 14 years.
That profile matters more than any single price statistic, because it describes your next tenant. A tenant pool led by young adults and couples without children is shaped by work and study rather than by the school calendar. MacGregor sits beside Griffith University's Nathan campus and close to Westfield Garden City, which is consistent with that skew. The practical consequences: demand is likely to be less tied to the weeks before the school year; layout, condition and commuting convenience carry more weight than block size; and a property wins a tenancy on presentation and pricing against current listings rather than on scarcity.
It also means a MacGregor rental should not be marketed on the assumption of a school-catchment family tenant. The census profile points the other way, and Fortune Key prices and presents each MacGregor property for the tenant who is actually in the market.
MacGregor Houses — High Value, Thin Yield, Slower Growth
At about $780 a week against a $1.5 million median value, the rental return on a MacGregor house is thin — about 2.6% gross on Cotality's series. Owners have accepted that because the asset was doing the heavy lifting. Over the 12 months to July 2026 it did less of it: annual value growth slowed to about 6.5%, from about 21% six months earlier, while asking rents kept rising.
When capital growth slows, rental income becomes a larger share of the total return, and an under-reviewed rent becomes more expensive. A MacGregor house still let at a mid-2025 rent, in a market that has moved about 8% since, is giving away roughly $60 a week. Fortune Key conducts a written market rent review with comparable evidence at every renewal — included in the management fee, not invoiced separately.
For owners weighing a sale against holding, the selling side is slower here too: about 25 days on market for houses, against 19 days in Calamvale and 22 days in Runcorn over the same period.
