Sunshine Acres vs Windaroo

The median house price is $1.1M in Sunshine Acres and $1.1M in Windaroo, so Windaroo is the cheaper entry point.

For units, Sunshine Acres sits at a median of $640K against $745K in Windaroo, which makes Sunshine Acres the more affordable unit market and Windaroo the pricier one.

On cash flow, Windaroo leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 3.80%, compared with 3.29% in Sunshine Acres, a gap of 0.51 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved +14.6% in Sunshine Acres and +18.8% in Windaroo, so recent momentum favours Windaroo, although both suburbs recorded growth.

Looking back three years, Sunshine Acres houses are +37.2% and Windaroo houses +41.0%, so Windaroo has compounded faster than Sunshine Acres over the longer window.

Rental vacancy is 1.6% in Windaroo and 5.5% in Sunshine Acres, so landlords in Windaroo face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Windaroo is the bigger suburb, with a population of 2,771 against 1,009, roughly 2.7 times the size of Sunshine Acres; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

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