Alphington vs Elwood

The median house price is $2.0M in Alphington and $2M in Elwood, so Alphington is the cheaper entry point, with Elwood houses about 2% dearer.

For units, Alphington sits at a median of $785K against $660K in Elwood, which makes Elwood the more affordable unit market and Alphington the pricier one.

On cash flow, Elwood leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 3.00%, compared with 2.46% in Alphington, a gap of 0.54 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved +4.2% in Alphington (an estimate) and -9.2% in Elwood (an estimate), so recent momentum favours Alphington, while Elwood went backwards.

Rental vacancy is 1.8% in Alphington and 2.3% in Elwood, so landlords in Alphington face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Elwood is the bigger suburb, with a population of 15,153 against 5,702, roughly 2.7 times the size of Alphington; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

In short: Elwood for rental income, Alphington for a lower purchase price, Alphington for recent price momentum, Alphington for the tighter rental market. Which matters more depends on whether the investor is buying for cash flow, capital growth or affordability.