Rental yield in Worthing and Brighton — what counts as a good return?

Gross yield is the simpler number. Annual rent divided by purchase price (or current market value), expressed as a percentage. A flat letting for £1,200 pcm against a £225,000 purchase price gives a gross yield of (14,400 ÷ 225,000) × 100 = 6.4%. It's useful because it's quick — you can compare two properties on a Rightmove listing in thirty seconds — but it overstates the return because it ignores every cost of actually owning and letting the property. Net yield is what's actually left. Take the gross rent, subtract the year's running costs (mortgage interest if you have one, letting agent fees, insurance, repairs, gas safety, EICR amortised, ground rent and service charges, council tax during voids, accountancy), then divide by the all-in acquisition cost including stamp duty and legal fees. The same flat above might let for £14,400 a year. After 12% management plus VAT (£2,070), insurance (£250), an average £750 a year in repairs and certificates, £500 in service charges, and a fortnight's void, the net is closer to £10,300. On an all-in acquisition cost of around £240,000 (purchase + 5% additional-property surcharge + legal + survey), the net yield is 4.3%. Both numbers are useful: gross to screen quickly, net to decide whether to buy. Most listings quote gross; most accountants quote net.

Yields on the Sussex coast in 2026 sit in a fairly narrow band, but the spread by area and property type still matters. Worthing flats — especially one- and two-beds in BN11 around the town centre — tend to deliver the strongest gross yields, comfortably 5–6% on a sensible purchase price. Worthing houses, particularly three-beds in Tarring or Goring, sit closer to 4–4.5%. Capital growth has run slower than the city but the rental demand is consistent and the management is straightforward. Brighton is the inverse. BN1 and BN2 flats around the city centre and the Lanes tend to yield 4–5% on the purchase price, with strong capital growth historically masking the comparatively lower income. Hove BN3 sits between the two — better growth than Worthing, slightly weaker yields than central Brighton. Student lets in BN1 and BN2 can pull the gross figure above 7% by letting per room rather than per property, but the regulatory load (HMO licensing, Article 4 directions in much of the city, summer voids, higher wear) eats into the margin. They're a separate business, not a higher-yielding version of the same one. For live numbers by neighbourhood, our [area pages](/areas) carry the medians we see in our own letting data, refreshed quarterly.

Three things, in order of impact. The purchase price. A property bought at a 10% discount in a slow market and let at the same rent permanently shifts the yield up. The single biggest determinant of a good investment is the price paid going in. The achievable rent, which depends less on the property itself than on what's competing with it that month. A two-bed flat in Goring isn't priced against everything in BN12 — it's priced against the other two-beds available the week your tenant is looking. Local agents know the comparable stock; portals don't. Running costs, which are mostly fixed regardless of rent. A £750-a-year set of compliance certificates and a £250 insurance bill costs the same on a £900 rent as on a £1,800 rent — so the higher-rent property converts a much larger share of gross into net. Mortgage rates and void periods sit in the second tier — they matter but they're variable. A good tenant who stays four years is worth as much to the net yield as a 0.4% rate cut.

No. Yield and capital growth pull in opposite directions, and the highest gross yields in the country are often in areas with the weakest property price growth — post-industrial towns, ex-mining areas, less popular city outskirts. The honest answer is that you pick the trade-off that suits your goals. If you need the income to live on, or you're using the property to top up a pension, yield matters more than growth — a 7% gross flat in a stable secondary market may be a better fit than a 4% growth play in central Brighton. If you're a working landlord with twenty years to compound, growth tends to win — a Brighton flat that doubles in value over a cycle while paying its own mortgage will out-earn a higher-yielding flat that stays flat in price, even on the same monthly cash flow. There is no general answer. But the highest gross yield on the listings page is rarely the right one — those properties tend to be highest-yielding because the market has already priced in a higher void risk, a higher repair bill, or a softer growth outlook. Cheap money usually isn't.