Ran the annual running cost of living numbers for 514 Brisbane suburbs. The gap between most and least expensive is $17,440 a year.

Been building a suburb cost comparison tool for a while now. Compiled council rates, water bills, driving costs (ATO 88c/km based on ABS annual km estimates by suburb type) and building insurance for every suburb across BCC, Moreton Bay, Logan, Ipswich and Redlands.

Finally got the full 514 suburbs done and the spread was bigger than I expected.

Most expensive houses to run per year:

Cheapest houses to run per year:

That's a $17,440 gap per year. $174,400 over ten years.

The top of the list is mostly rural fringe suburbs where residents drive roughly 18,000km a year based on ABS data. At $0.88/km all-in (fuel, rego, insurance, depreciation), that's $15,840 in driving costs alone before you pay a dollar in rates or water.

The finding that actually surprised me was Jacobs Well, Norwell and Woongoolba sitting at $21,850 each. I assumed they were expensive because of the commute. They're not. Building insurance in those coastal Logan suburbs is estimated at $5,200 a year due to flood exposure from the Pimpama River and Moreton Bay. Rates and distance are similar to other outer Logan suburbs. Insurance is the whole difference.

The unit data is interesting too. Average annual running cost for a house across 514 suburbs: $14,407. For a unit: $14,431. Basically identical. BCC units save $520 a year in council rates compared to houses but body corporate absorbs that in every single suburb. The cheapest units aren't inner city either. They're mid-ring BCC like Annerley ($6,509) and Geebung ($6,619), where commute is short enough to partially offset the strata levy.

Quick housekeeping before anyone builds a life plan around this:

This is driving costs only. Translink charges a flat $0.50 per trip so public transport works out to $192 a year from any Queensland suburb regardless of distance (assuming 4x commutes per week). If you catch the train, the outer suburb numbers look very different.

No purchase price in here either. Brisbane City is cheapest to run and nowhere near cheapest to buy. These are just the annual holding costs.

Also still trying to get property price data sorted. Waiting on API access to pull median sale prices into the tool alongside everything else. Hopefully soon, because the full picture would be a lot more useful with that in there.

Happy to pull the breakdown for any suburb if you want to see where yours sits.