Armidale vs Chatham

The median house price is $650K in Armidale and $645K in Chatham, so Chatham is the cheaper entry point, with Armidale houses about 1% dearer.

For units, Armidale sits at a median of $405K against $400K in Chatham, which makes Chatham the more affordable unit market and Armidale the pricier one.

On cash flow, Chatham leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 4.52%, compared with 4.24% in Armidale, a gap of 0.28 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved +19.1% in Armidale and -10.7% in Chatham (an estimate), so recent momentum favours Armidale, while Chatham went backwards.

Rental vacancy is 1.3% in Chatham and 2.3% in Armidale, so landlords in Chatham face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Chatham is the bigger suburb, with a population of 36,841 against 23,967, larger than Armidale; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

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