Essendon vs Ormond

The median house price is $1.8M in Essendon and $1.8M in Ormond, so Essendon is the cheaper entry point.

For units, Essendon sits at a median of $600K against $720K in Ormond, which makes Essendon the more affordable unit market and Ormond the pricier one.

On cash flow, Ormond leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 2.59%, compared with 2.28% in Essendon, a gap of 0.31 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved +6.8% in Essendon and -5.0% in Ormond (an estimate), so recent momentum favours Essendon, while Ormond went backwards.

Rental vacancy is 1.5% in Essendon and 1.9% in Ormond, so landlords in Essendon face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Essendon is the bigger suburb, with a population of 21,240 against 8,328, roughly 2.6 times the size of Ormond; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

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