Sandy Beach vs Warrawong

The median house price is $910K in Sandy Beach and $905K in Warrawong, so Warrawong is the cheaper entry point, with Sandy Beach houses about 1% dearer.

For units, Sandy Beach sits at a median of $700K against $490K in Warrawong, which makes Warrawong the more affordable unit market and Sandy Beach the pricier one.

On cash flow, Sandy Beach leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 4.00%, compared with 3.74% in Warrawong, a gap of 0.26 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved -0.2% in Sandy Beach and +8.3% in Warrawong (an estimate), so recent momentum favours Warrawong, while Sandy Beach went backwards.

Rental vacancy is 0.5% in Warrawong and 1.3% in Sandy Beach, so landlords in Warrawong face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Warrawong is the bigger suburb, with a population of 4,659 against 2,913, larger than Sandy Beach; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

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