El Menzah Tops Tunis Rental Yield Rankings as Investors Chase 8.2% Returns

El Menzah is delivering gross rental yields of 8.2 percent annually, the highest recorded across Tunis's residential market in the first half of 2026, according to data compiled by the Chambre Nationale des Agents Immobiliers de Tunisie. The figure comfortably outpaces the 5.4 percent average logged across the city's traditional prestige belt — Les Berges du Lac, La Marsa, and Sidi Bou Said — and marks a third consecutive year that El Menzah has led the rankings.

The timing matters. Tunisia's central bank held its benchmark interest rate at 8 percent through the first quarter of 2026, keeping mortgage financing expensive and pushing a growing cohort of middle-income earners into the rental market rather than ownership. At the same time, the national employment agency, ANETI, recorded a 12 percent rise in private-sector job placements in Greater Tunis between January and May 2026, driven largely by technology firms clustering around the Ghazala Technopark corridor in Ariana — a 15-minute drive from El Menzah's core streets. That combination of constrained ownership demand and rising professional tenancy is exactly what yield-hunting investors want to see.

What Is Driving the El Menzah Premium

The suburb's advantages are structural, not accidental. El Menzah 6 and El Menzah 9 — the two sub-districts attracting the most transaction activity — sit adjacent to the Avenue Mohamed Bouazizi ring road, giving tenants direct access to both the city centre and Tunis-Carthage International Airport without crossing the chronically congested downtown grid. Two-bedroom apartments on Rue des Palmes and the surrounding residential streets are letting at between 1,100 and 1,400 dinars per month, while comparable units in Les Berges du Lac 2 fetch 1,800 dinars but carry purchase prices that make the yield arithmetic far less attractive.

Purchase costs in El Menzah 9 currently average 2,800 dinars per square metre for a well-finished resale apartment, according to listings aggregated by the portal Mubawab.tn as of June 2026. A 90-square-metre unit therefore costs roughly 252,000 dinars, generating annual rent income close to 15,600 dinars at current market rates. Strip out a conservative 15 percent for vacancy, maintenance and agency fees, and net yield still clears 5.2 percent — still above the rate on a 12-month postal savings account at La Poste Tunisienne.

The suburb also benefits from concrete infrastructure investment. The Tunis municipality approved a 47-million-dinar road and drainage upgrade package for El Menzah 8 and 9 in late 2025, with completion scheduled for the third quarter of 2027. Investors who bought before that announcement have already seen valuations tick upward. The neighbourhood's proximity to Clinique El Menzah and two established international schools on the Ariana road adds a tenant demographic — medical staff and expat families — that tends to sign longer leases and default less frequently.

How Investors Are Positioning Themselves

Local property funds are moving. Axis Capital, the Tunis-based asset manager, increased its residential allocation to El Menzah and adjacent El Manar by 18 percentage points in its Q1 2026 portfolio rebalancing, reducing exposure to Lac 2. Smaller private investors are following a similar logic: buy in the 200,000-to-280,000-dinar range, furnish to a professional standard, and market to the growing cohort of seconded engineers and consultants working the Ghazala and El Ghazala tech zones.

Anyone considering entry now should move methodically. The 8.2 percent headline yield assumes full occupancy and a landlord managing the property directly. Investors using an agent lose roughly 1 to 1.5 months of rent annually in fees. Notary and registration costs add a further 7 percent to the purchase price upfront. The strongest entry point remains resale stock in El Menzah 6 built between 2005 and 2015 — new-build prices in the district have risen sharply enough since 2024 that the yield calculation tightens considerably on units bought off-plan today. Due diligence on title deeds through the Conservation Foncière remains non-negotiable; a handful of El Menzah transactions in 2025 stalled over unresolved succession disputes. Get the paperwork right, and the numbers are as clean as anything Tunis has offered investors in recent memory.