NSW Newcastle vs Central Coast- Upmarket Capital Gains (Infrastructure and Livability)

Evening Everyone,

For intro- my wife and I are looking to purchase our first property and are looking heavily out of Sydney, mostly the Central Coast and Newcastle and up to 1.7m. It will be an investment property as we both live in Sydney but we are potentially keen to move up the coast in the future so that is an open consideration in purchasing.

Some suburbs we are looking at
- Terrigal (CC)
- The Entrance (CC)
- Mereweather & Mereweather Heights (NC)
- Adamstown (NC)
- Hamilton (NC)

Some of our criteria
- We want to own land
- Development or re-development potential
- Within a 15 min drive of the beach

Investment goals
- Capital gains lead
- Rental yield is less important to us (we actually have better cash flow than we do mortgage capacity so this is less of an issue for us)

A few things on our mind, CC seems to be a holiday destination and a mix of commuting sydney workers and locals. It doesn't appear to have major infrastructure in the works and also given it is driveable to Sydney I don't see that changing any time soon. Investing there to me would be to cater to cashed up people retiring up the coast, or for holiday letting (maybe both in a duplex)? Newcastle is really coming into its own with moving away form being a coal town. It seems to be becoming more and more its own city with strong schools, university, and other supporting factors. It is also a holiday destination and if/when high speed rail comes in it will be commutable.

No pride here, although we are both young working professionals the only reason we are able to look in this range is the bank of mum and dad. I guess one of the perks for them having worked hard (both parents are overseas immigrants who came here as refugees with nothing) is being able to support their kids (not that hard work directly correlates to this). Also, it is family tradition to help the first kid who is able to buy a home, who then helps the rest of the siblings to enter the market down the line so ambition is to help siblings 1,2,3 in the next few years.

Anyway, thanks for the help and keen to chat through this with you all!