Crafers vs Lockleys

The median house price is $1.5M in Crafers and $1.5M in Lockleys, so Crafers is the cheaper entry point, with Lockleys houses about 4% dearer.

For units, Crafers sits at a median of $635K against $610K in Lockleys, which makes Lockleys the more affordable unit market and Crafers the pricier one.

On cash flow, Crafers leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 2.99%, compared with 2.60% in Lockleys, a gap of 0.39 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved +6.7% in Crafers and +10.8% in Lockleys (an estimate), so recent momentum favours Lockleys, although both suburbs recorded growth.

Rental vacancy is 0.7% in Lockleys and 2.4% in Crafers, so landlords in Lockleys face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Lockleys is the bigger suburb, with a population of 5,987 against 2,006, roughly 3.0 times the size of Crafers; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

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