Fern Bay vs Jamberoo

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

For units, Fern Bay sits at a median of $815K against $755K in Jamberoo, which makes Jamberoo the more affordable unit market and Fern Bay the pricier one.

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

Over the past year house prices moved +6.5% in Fern Bay and -8.8% in Jamberoo (an estimate), so recent momentum favours Fern Bay, while Jamberoo went backwards.

Looking back three years, Fern Bay houses are +10.6% and Jamberoo houses -21.5%, so Fern Bay has compounded faster than Jamberoo over the longer window.

Rental vacancy is 0.4% in Jamberoo and 1.0% in Fern Bay, so landlords in Jamberoo face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Fern Bay is the bigger suburb, with a population of 4,046 against 1,910, roughly 2.1 times the size of Jamberoo; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

In short: Jamberoo for rental income, Fern Bay 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.