Kew East vs Surrey Hills

The median house price is $2.3M in Kew East and $2.2M in Surrey Hills, so Surrey Hills is the cheaper entry point, with Kew East houses about 5% dearer.

For units, Kew East sits at a median of $1.1M against $900K in Surrey Hills, which makes Surrey Hills the more affordable unit market and Kew East the pricier one.

On cash flow, Kew East leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 2.40%, compared with 2.23% in Surrey Hills, a gap of 0.17 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved -2.0% in Kew East (an estimate) and -6.5% in Surrey Hills (an estimate), so recent momentum favours Kew East, while Surrey Hills went backwards.

Rental vacancy is 1.1% in Kew East and 2.6% in Surrey Hills, so landlords in Kew East face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Surrey Hills is the bigger suburb, with a population of 13,655 against 6,620, roughly 2.1 times the size of Kew East; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

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