Brunswick East vs Mentone

The median house price is $1.4M in Brunswick East and $1.4M in Mentone, so Mentone is the cheaper entry point, with Brunswick East houses about 1% dearer.

For units, Brunswick East sits at a median of $535K against $660K in Mentone, which makes Brunswick East the more affordable unit market and Mentone the pricier one.

On cash flow, Brunswick East leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 3.30%, compared with 3.07% in Mentone, a gap of 0.23 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved +4.7% in Brunswick East (an estimate) and +3.4% in Mentone (an estimate), so recent momentum favours Brunswick East, although both suburbs recorded growth.

Rental vacancy is 0.9% in Mentone and 1.1% in Brunswick East, so landlords in Mentone face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Brunswick East is the bigger suburb, with a population of 13,279 against 13,197, larger than Mentone; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

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