Charlestown vs Jamberoo

Houses cost about the same in both suburbs: the median house price is $1.1M in Charlestown and $1.1M in Jamberoo.

For units, Charlestown sits at a median of $730K against $755K in Jamberoo, which makes Charlestown the more affordable unit market and Jamberoo the pricier one.

On cash flow, Jamberoo leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 3.81%, compared with 3.50% in Charlestown, a gap of 0.31 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved +14.9% in Charlestown and -8.8% in Jamberoo (an estimate), so recent momentum favours Charlestown, while Jamberoo went backwards.

Looking back three years, Charlestown houses are +24.0% and Jamberoo houses -21.5%, so Charlestown has compounded faster than Jamberoo over the longer window.

Rental vacancy is 0.4% in Jamberoo and 1.9% in Charlestown, so landlords in Jamberoo face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Charlestown is the bigger suburb, with a population of 13,601 against 1,910, roughly 7 times the size of Jamberoo; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

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