Melrose Park vs Warriewood

Houses cost about the same in both suburbs: the median house price is $2.5M in Melrose Park and $2.5M in Warriewood.

For units, Melrose Park sits at a median of $790K against $1.5M in Warriewood, which makes Melrose Park the more affordable unit market and Warriewood the pricier one.

On cash flow, Warriewood leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 3.32%, compared with 1.84% in Melrose Park, a gap of 1.48 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved +0.0% in Melrose Park and +3.5% in Warriewood (an estimate), so recent momentum favours Warriewood, although both suburbs recorded growth.

Rental vacancy is 1.2% in Melrose Park and 1.6% in Warriewood, so landlords in Melrose Park face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Warriewood is the bigger suburb, with a population of 8,379 against 2,059, roughly 4.1 times the size of Melrose Park; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

In short: Warriewood for rental income, Warriewood for recent price momentum, Melrose Park for the tighter rental market. Which matters more depends on whether the investor is buying for cash flow, capital growth or affordability.