Essendon vs Parkville

The median house price is $1.8M in Essendon and $1.8M in Parkville, so Parkville is the cheaper entry point, with Essendon houses about 3% dearer.

For units, Essendon sits at a median of $600K against $470K in Parkville, which makes Parkville the more affordable unit market and Essendon the pricier one.

On cash flow, Parkville leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 3.10%, compared with 2.28% in Essendon, a gap of 0.82 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved +6.8% in Essendon and -2.8% in Parkville, so recent momentum favours Essendon, while Parkville went backwards.

Looking back three years, Essendon houses are +1.4% and Parkville houses -28.9%, so Essendon has compounded faster than Parkville over the longer window.

Rental vacancy is 0.9% in Parkville and 1.5% in Essendon, so landlords in Parkville 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 7,074, roughly 3.0 times the size of Parkville; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

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