Drummoyne vs Lane Cove

The median house price is $3.2M in Drummoyne and $3.2M in Lane Cove, so Drummoyne is the cheaper entry point, with Lane Cove houses about 1% dearer.

For units, Drummoyne sits at a median of $1.5M against $975K in Lane Cove, which makes Lane Cove the more affordable unit market and Drummoyne the pricier one.

On cash flow, Drummoyne leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 2.35%, compared with 2.09% in Lane Cove, a gap of 0.26 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved +6.3% in Drummoyne and -5.5% in Lane Cove, so recent momentum favours Drummoyne, while Lane Cove went backwards.

Looking back three years, Drummoyne houses are +6.9% and Lane Cove houses +5.1%, so Drummoyne has compounded faster than Lane Cove over the longer window.

Rental vacancy is 1.1% in Lane Cove and 2.0% in Drummoyne, so landlords in Lane Cove face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Lane Cove is the bigger suburb, with a population of 12,363 against 12,011, larger than Drummoyne; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

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