Melbourne east ยท VIC 3108
Buyers agent in Doncaster
Solid decade, weak yield, and the widest gap between house and unit performance on this list.
Figures below are July 2026, suburb level, all bedroom counts. Full Manningham council report.
The Doncaster numbers
Houses
$1,674,920
Typical price
$721
Weekly rent
2.24%
Gross yield
+2.2%
Growth a year, 10yr
+4.3%
Growth, last 12mth
344
Sales a year
Units
$648,082
Typical price
$627
Weekly rent
5.03%
Gross yield
+0.8%
Growth a year, 10yr
+2.8%
Growth, last 12mth
351
Sales a year
Vacancy rate 1.89% across roughly 13,386 dwellings. HtAG Analytics, suburb level, all bedroom counts. Typical price is a modelled estimate, not a median of recent sales.
The honest read
What I'd tell you over a coffee
Doncaster houses have done 2.2% a year over ten years and 4.3% over the last one. That's respectable for Melbourne's east and better than every Boroondara or Stonnington suburb here.
The catch is the yield. 2.24% gross on a $1.67m house is the lowest of the twelve. You'd be putting up a lot of capital for a rent of about $721 a week, which is less than Yarraville gets on a house worth $400,000 less.
The unit market tells a different story again. 2.5% growth gap between houses and units over the decade, and 351 unit sales a year against 344 house sales. Doncaster has been building apartments for a long time and it shows in the unit numbers.
Vacancy at 1.9% is the second loosest here. Not alarming, but it's not a landlord's market either.
Who Doncaster suits
Buyers who want the eastern suburbs school and transport story and can carry a low yield while the growth does the work.
What I'd watch
That 2.24% yield. On $1.67m, the gap between rent and holding costs is real money every month, and it has to come from somewhere.
How I work
- Flat $20,000 fee, whatever you buy and wherever it is
- No commissions from agents, developers or builders
- I'll tell you when a suburb doesn't stack up, including this one
Fair questions
Buying in Doncaster, answered
Are Doncaster apartments a good buy?
The numbers say be careful. Units have grown 0.8% a year over ten years against 2.2% for houses, and 351 units trade annually in a suburb of 13,386 dwellings. That's a lot of supply. Apartment stock competing with new apartment stock rarely ends well for growth.
What's a typical Doncaster house worth?
Around $1.67m as at July 2026, renting near $721 a week for a gross yield of 2.24%. About 344 houses sell a year.
Other Melbourne suburbs
Same treatment, same data, different answer in every one of them.