EquitySight.app
Free full calculator →
EquitySight.app
Free full calculator →
ABS 2021 Census · Updated 21 May 2026
Whalan is a regional centre in New South Wales, Australia, with a population of approximately 5,929, making it a smaller community. Located approximately 39 km from the Sydney CBD, Whalan is a regional area in New South Wales. The median household income is $60,320 per year.
Household earnings in Whalan are below the state average, which may affect long-term capital growth. As a regional location, growth prospects depend on local economic conditions and infrastructure investment.
Official Australia Post postcode for Whalan. A postcode may cover multiple suburbs.
Australia Post Postcode Finder →Usual resident population at the most recent census.
Weekly median rent for occupied homes. Live rental data integration coming soon.
Annual median household income (before tax) across all households.
Straight-line distance from the suburb centroid to the nearest capital city CBD. Actual driving distance will be longer.
Estimated 1 school within or near this suburb.
Find schools near Whalan on My School →Estimated 2 parks and green spaces near this suburb.
Monthly median mortgage repayment for households currently paying off a mortgage.
Proportion of separate houses versus units, townhouses, and other home types. Useful for investors assessing rental demand mix.
5,929 residents places Whalan squarely in the middle of the New South Wales suburb size distribution (state median 5,325), with market depth comparable to most NSW localities. Whalan's median household income of $60,320/year is 38% below the New South Wales suburb median ($97,552) — this is an affordability play where returns lean on yield and patient capital growth rather than demographic premium. Rent of $300/week (75% coverage of the $1,733/month median mortgage) leaves a gap of roughly $433/month that a typical investor bridges with negative gearing, depreciation and capital growth. At 39 km from Sydney, Whalan is an outer-metro location where buyers are typically trading commute time for floor space and a lower entry price.
This suburb suits yield-focused investors who are comfortable with lower liquidity. Employment concentration and local population trends matter more here than in metro markets. Local rents consume roughly 26% of household income — a useful sanity check on tenant affordability.
How Whalan stacks up against the median of all New South Wales suburbs in our dataset. Positive values mean Whalan sits above the state median; negative means below.
| Metric | Whalan | NSW median | Δ vs state |
|---|---|---|---|
| Population | 5,929 | 5,325 | +11% |
| Median household income | $60,320/yr | $97,552/yr | -38% |
| Median rent (weekly) | $300 | $430 | -30% |
| Median mortgage (monthly) | $1,733 | $2,167 | -20% |
| Distance to CBD | 39 km | 45 km | -13% |
| Separate houses | 82% | 76% | +6pp |
Pre-inspection briefing for Whalan — every item is derived from public datasets, with full citations in our data sources page.
Limited buy-and-hold upside: household incomes 38% below the NSW median ($60,320 vs $97,552) means liquidity is thin and capital growth tends to lag the wider New South Wales market over full cycles.
Moderate rental coverage: rent of $300/week covers 75% of a $1,733/month mortgage, leaving a $433/month gap that an investor bridges with equity, depreciation and tax benefits.
With 82% houses in a 5,929-person market, renovation margins depend on individual street and aspect rather than any suburb-wide story — do comparable-sales analysis before committing capital.
Run the numbers on a Whalan property
Scenario comparison, cash flow analysis, tax modelling, and PDF export — all in one place.
Create free account →Capital-growth expectations for Whalan are modest for 2026 — incomes 38% below the NSW median of $97,552 suggest gains will lag headline metro markets. Rental coverage runs at ~75% of the typical mortgage ($1,300/month rent vs $1,733/month repayment), leaving a manageable top-up for most investors. The EquitySight investment score of 40/100 places Whalan in the lower tier of Australian suburbs we profile, and overall investor sentiment is cautious heading into the second half of 2026.
Lived in Whalan? Help other investors with an honest 100-word review. Sign-in required; all reviews are manually moderated before they appear.
Whalan scores 40/100 on our EquitySight investment framework — a weak rating. That score is driven by a population of 5,929, median household income of $60,320/year and median weekly rent of $300. Whether it fits your portfolio depends on whether you are targeting cash flow, capital growth, or a value-add renovation — all three are scored with suburb-specific numbers elsewhere on this page.
The main demand drivers in Whalan are a median household income of $60,320/year, a dwelling mix that is 82% separate houses, roughly 1 schools and 2 parks within the catchment. Together these shape both owner-occupier and tenant demand and are the factors we weight most heavily in the suburb's investment score.
Whalan has a usual resident population of approximately 5,929, compared with a New South Wales suburb median of 5,325 — placing it in the upper half of the state's suburbs by size. Population is the clearest proxy for market depth: more residents mean more transactions and typically a shorter average days-on-market on resale.
Whalan sits 39 km straight-line from the Sydney CBD. This is an outer-metro location; local employment and infrastructure announcements tend to move prices more than CBD connectivity alone.
The most recent census recorded a median weekly rent of $300 in Whalan, equating to approximately $15,600/year in gross rental income (state median $430/week). Market rents have typically drifted above the recorded figure — verify against current listings on realestate.com.au and Domain before making an offer.
The median monthly mortgage repayment in Whalan is $1,733, or approximately $20,796/year (vs $2,167/month state median). Stress-test your own borrowing at rates 1–2 percentage points above today's to make sure you can still service the loan through an RBA tightening cycle.
A median weekly rent of $300 works out to $1,300/month, covering 75% of the median mortgage repayment of $1,733/month. That leaves a $433/month shortfall (around $5,196/year before tax benefits), so a typical owner-occupier-priced property here is negatively geared. Actual cash flow depends on your deposit, loan terms, ownership costs and marginal tax rate — run the full numbers in our rental yield calculator.
The main risks are interest-rate sensitivity on the $1,733 median mortgage, below-median household incomes ($60,320 vs $97,552 state median), the broader New South Wales market cycle. Each of these is covered in the Risk Factors section above with suburb-specific numbers rather than generic warnings.
Every number on this page comes from the ABS 2021 Census of Population and Housing, Australia Post postcode reference data, and OpenStreetMap amenity tiles. The investment score, strategy verdicts, and comparison table are computed deterministically from those inputs — no opinion, no estimation. See our full methodology and the data sources and licences for the formulas we use.