Toorak Gardens vs Wattle Park

The median house price is $2.7M in Toorak Gardens and $1.9M in Wattle Park, so Wattle Park is the cheaper entry point, with Toorak Gardens houses about 42% dearer.

On cash flow, Wattle Park leads: houses there return a gross rental yield of 2.54%, compared with 1.94% in Toorak Gardens, a gap of 0.60 percentage points.

Over the past year house prices moved +4.2% in Toorak Gardens and +8.5% in Wattle Park, so recent momentum favours Wattle Park, although both suburbs recorded growth.

Looking back three years, Toorak Gardens houses are +53.0% and Wattle Park houses +53.7%, so Wattle Park has compounded faster than Toorak Gardens over the longer window.

Rental vacancy is 1.1% in Toorak Gardens and 1.2% in Wattle Park, so landlords in Toorak Gardens face less competition for tenants. Anything under 2% is generally read as a tight market where tenants compete for homes.

Toorak Gardens is the bigger suburb, with a population of 2,604 against 1,885, larger than Wattle Park; a larger suburb usually means a deeper pool of buyers and tenants.

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