Brunswick vs St Helena

The median house price is $1.3M in Brunswick and $1.3M in St Helena, so St Helena is the cheaper entry point, with Brunswick houses about 1% dearer.

For units, Brunswick sits at a median of $600K against $895K in St Helena, which makes Brunswick the more affordable unit market and St Helena the pricier one.

On cash flow, Brunswick leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 3.36%, compared with 3.15% in St Helena, a gap of 0.21 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved +0.1% in Brunswick (an estimate) and -1.1% in St Helena, so recent momentum favours Brunswick, while St Helena went backwards.

Rental vacancy is 1.0% in Brunswick and 1.3% in St Helena, so landlords in Brunswick face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Brunswick is the bigger suburb, with a population of 24,896 against 2,890, roughly 9 times the size of St Helena; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

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