Pennington vs Port Adelaide

The median house price is $875K in Pennington and $870K in Port Adelaide, so Port Adelaide is the cheaper entry point, with Pennington houses about 1% dearer.

On cash flow, Port Adelaide leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 3.90%, compared with 3.52% in Pennington, a gap of 0.38 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved +14.3% in Pennington (an estimate) and +15.3% in Port Adelaide (an estimate), so recent momentum favours Port Adelaide, although both suburbs recorded growth.

Rental vacancy is 0.4% in Pennington and 0.6% in Port Adelaide, so landlords in Pennington face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Pennington is the bigger suburb, with a population of 3,773 against 1,338, roughly 2.8 times the size of Port Adelaide; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

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