Jan Juc vs Mount Martha

The median house price is $1.4M in Jan Juc and $1.4M in Mount Martha, so Jan Juc is the cheaper entry point, with Mount Martha houses about 1% dearer.

On cash flow, Mount Martha leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 3.32%, compared with 3.06% in Jan Juc, a gap of 0.26 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved +0.3% in Jan Juc and -1.6% in Mount Martha, so recent momentum favours Jan Juc, while Mount Martha went backwards.

Looking back three years, Jan Juc houses are +5.5% and Mount Martha houses -23.1%, so Jan Juc has compounded faster than Mount Martha over the longer window.

Rental vacancy is 1.8% in Jan Juc and 2.0% in Mount Martha, so landlords in Jan Juc face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Mount Martha is the bigger suburb, with a population of 19,846 against 4,151, roughly 4.8 times the size of Jan Juc; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

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