We run about 1,800 long-term rentals and 650 sale listings across Phuket at any one time. That is the same book on both sides of the trade, which makes it possible to ask a question most Phuket yield claims quietly avoid: for the same kind of villa, in the same district, what does the rent actually come to as a percentage of the asking price?
The answer ranges from 3.4% to 9.1% depending on where you buy. That is not a rounding difference. It is the difference between an asset that services its own costs and one that does not.
Gross yield by district
Every figure below is bedroom-matched: a three-bedroom rental is only ever compared with a three-bedroom sale in the same district, and the district figure is the weighted blend of those matched pairs.
| District | Gross yield | Rentals | For sale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kathu | 9.1% | 54 | 11 |
| Rawai | 9.0% | 375 | 154 |
| Bang Tao | 8.2% | 704 | 234 |
| Ko Kaeo | 7.6% | 104 | 27 |
| Chalong | 7.5% | 202 | 69 |
| Thalang | 6.7% | 74 | 44 |
| Pa Klok | 5.9% | 37 | 16 |
| Kamala | 3.4% | 35 | 13 |
Kathu's 9.1% rests on only 11 listings for sale — treat it as indicative rather than settled. Kata, Phuket Town and Surin had too few matched listings to publish at all (Kata (4 listings for sale), Phuket Town (5 listings for sale), Surin (4 listings for sale)).
The prestige discount is real, and it is large
The cleanest way to see what is happening is to put Kamala and Rawai side by side at three bedrooms — the deepest, most liquid segment of the Phuket market.
| 3-bedroom villa | Median rent | Median asking price | Gross yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rawai | ฿120,000/mo | ฿15,525,000 | 9.3% |
| Kamala | ฿120,000/mo | ฿38,900,000 | 3.7% |
The rent is identical. The price is two and a half times higher. A tenant choosing between a three-bedroom villa in Kamala and one in Rawai is, on the evidence of our own book, willing to pay roughly the same monthly figure for either. The buyer is not paying the same at all.
This is what people mean when they say a beach is "prestigious" — the land is priced on scarcity and view, while the rent is priced on what a family or a long-stay tenant will actually part with each month. Those two things have come loose from each other on the west-coast headlands, and they have stayed loose.
Where the yield actually is
Rawai and Chalong sit at the top of the credible range because the rental demand there is structural rather than seasonal. These are the districts where people who live in Phuket live — long-stay expats, remote workers, families on multi-year leases. That produces occupancy that does not collapse in May.
Bang Tao is the interesting middle. At 8.2% across 704 rentals and 234 sale listings, it is by a wide margin the deepest data we have, and it holds up: the Laguna area has enough genuine year-round rental demand to support its prices. It is the one premium address on the island where the numbers do not punish you.
Kamala and Surin are where buyers most often assume the yield will be highest, because that is where the most impressive villas are. It is the opposite.
What this is not
Three things, stated plainly, because a yield number without them is close to useless:
- These are asking prices, not achieved prices. Sale listings in Phuket routinely transact below asking. Where negotiation is heaviest, the real yield is higher than shown.
- This is gross, not net. Before you see any of it: management at roughly 8–12% of collected rent, maintenance and pool service, common-area fees where the villa sits in an estate, land and building tax, insurance, and vacancy between tenancies. A realistic net is meaningfully below the gross figure, and the gap is wider on older properties.
- This is long-term rental only. Nightly and holiday letting is a different business with different returns, different management costs and — importantly — different legal exposure under the Hotel Act. We will cover that separately.
What the table is good for is relative comparison. The costs above fall on every district roughly alike, so a 9% district and a 3.4% district stay ordered the same way after costs. The ranking is the finding, not the decimal.
How we calculated it
Taken from our own catalogue on 20 August 2026: 2,446 listings with a published price and an assigned district — 1,793 long-term rentals and 653 for sale. For each district and bedroom count we took the median monthly rent and the median asking price, required at least four listings on each side before using a pair, and computed gross yield as twelve months of median rent over median asking price. District figures weight each bedroom pair by its smaller sample. Pairs producing implausible results (under 1% or over 20%) were excluded as data errors rather than left to distort the average.
If you want the underlying figures for a specific district or bedroom count, ask us — we will send them.