Name: Property Investment Index methodology · dw:fk0Kw
Creator: Finder

Australians love property, but for many, figuring out where to invest is the hardest part. Finder's Property Investment Index uses a range of data inputs to predict price growth in each suburb across Australia's major cities. Property Investment Index pages for Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart are also available.

As of September 2026, the following suburbs have the highest potential for price growth:
Houses: Zetland(91.8/100), Erskineville(91.5/100), Balmain East(90.1/100)
Units: Burraneer(92.1/100), Menai(91.5/100), Wareemba(90.3/100)

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Sydney Australia

What is the Property Investment Index?

The Property Investment Index is a model that ranks suburbs based on their investment potential. Suburbs are scored out of 100, with 100 indicating very high predicted price growth and 0 indicating very low or negative predicted price growth.

The final score is calculated based on 3 factors:

Market demand (maximum 50 points): This is based on sales turnover, average days on market, vacancy rates, building approvals and distance to the CBD.
Population (maximum 40 points): This is based on population, population growth, income, income growth and unemployment rates.
Property (maximum 25 points): This is based on historical property price growth and current property prices.

An additional 15 points are given to suburbs that have had at least 1 property sale over the past 12 months. The number of points for each suburb is capped at 100.

The index is intended to be an indicator of relative price growth, rather than of property prices themselves. A high score does not necessarily mean that a suburb will have the highest house prices but that we can expect strong growth in that area.

Note: The methodology was adjusted in August 2024 to remove all suburbs which do not have currently available Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) sale price data for houses or units, as applicable. This has resulted in a number of smaller and more regional areas with few property sales not receiving a score. These areas will appear again once Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) reports sale price data for those areas.

Houses

Top scoring suburbs by price point

Units

Top scoring suburbs by price point

Search the Property Investment Index by suburb

How the Index works

Finder's Property Investment Index uses a range of data inputs to predict price growth in each suburb across Australia's major cities. These data inputs are weighted to produce a score out of 100, with 100 indicating very high predicted price growth and 0 indicating very low or negative predicted price growth.

Apart from the weighted inputs listed below, an additional 15 points are given to suburbs that have had at least 1 property sale over the past 12 months.

Property Investment Index methodology · dw:fk0Kw
Component	Data input	Definition	Weighting	Source
Property	House price growth	Average property price growth over the past 12 months	15%	Cotality (formerly CoreLogic)
Property	House prices	Median property sales price over the past 12 months	10%	Cotality (formerly CoreLogic)
Population	Income	Average household income (2021)	12%	ABS
Population	Income growth	Income growth rate between 2016 and 2021	10%	ABS
Population	Population growth	Population growth rate between 2016 and 2021	8%	ABS
Population	Population	Population (2021)	5%	ABS
Population	Unemployment	Unemployment rate (2021)	5%	ABS
Market demand	Sales turnover	Percentage of properties in a suburb that have sold in the past 12 months	16%	Cotality (formerly CoreLogic)
Market demand	Building approvals	Number of residential building approvals as a percentage of property stock (by LGA)	7%	ABS
Market demand	Days on market	Average number of days between a property’s listed date and its sell date over the past 12 months	6%	Cotality (formerly CoreLogic)
Market demand	Distance to CBD	Distance to the nearest capital city centre	6%	Google

Investor activity in New South Wales

Before the pandemic, investor activity in New South Wales had been trending downwards since 2017. This decline deepened when COVID-19 hit, with investor home loans activity falling further before rebounding in the years that followed.

As of March 2026, the total value of investor loans in New South Wales sits at $12.85 billion. While this marks a 25.3% quarter-on-quarter drop from the record $17.2 billion reported in the previous quarter, it remains 17.7% higher than the same time last year.

The sharp quarterly fall comes after a sustained surge in investor lending, indicating activity has cooled after reaching a recent peak. Even so, loan values remain significantly higher than levels recorded a year earlier.

Property sentiment in Sydney

Sydney residents (62%) are the most likely to believe property prices in their area will increase in the next 12 months, according to Finder's Consumer Sentiment Tracker. This includes 21% who think price growth will be significant. On the other hand, 14% believe prices in their area will fall over the next year.

Finder's Property Investment Index uses a range of data inputs to predict price growth in each suburb across Australia's major cities. Each suburb is given a score out of 100, with 100 indicating very high predicted price growth and 0 indicating very low or negative predicted price growth.
Our model used 12 data inputs, including property price growth, unemployment rates and income growth (see table above for details). Each of the inputs is scored to distribute the data between 0 and 100. For instance, a suburb with an unemployment rate of 0% would receive a score of 100 for the unemployment metric. These 12 sub-scores are then weighted to calculate an overall score between 0 and 100. An additional 15 points are awarded to suburbs that have had at least 1 property sale over the past 12 months.
Houses and units are analysed separately so that each suburb is assigned 1 index score for houses and 1 for units. There is less property data available on units, particularly in suburbs where houses make up the majority of sales. This is why some suburbs are missing data on units.
In cases where a data point (e.g. price growth) is not available for either units or houses within a suburb, the available data is used for both property types. For example, if sales turnover for units is unavailable in a suburb, the sales turnover figure for houses is assumed. If the data point is missing from both units and houses, the suburb is given a score representing the 17th percentile of all properties (i.e. one-third of the average).
Note that the suburb-specific Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) data we use lags by 3 months. This means that data released in May reflects the property market in February.

- The index uses historical data to predict future changes. We assume past population, income and property price growth are indicative of future growth.
- We analyse data by suburb, but in some instances, data is not available at the suburb level. In this case, we use the equivalent data at the postcode level instead.
- Data used on building approvals is at the LGA level rather than the suburb level.

Thank you for your feedback!

Written by

Graham Cooke

Head of Consumer Research

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Graham Cooke is Finder’s Head of Consumer Research, overseeing data analysis on consumer spending and saving habits. He is a passionate advocate for financial literacy and consumer rights, regularly appearing on major TV networks like ABC News and 7 News, and contributing to top outlets like Yahoo Finance and Money Magazine. Graham holds a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Physics, as well as Tier 1 and Tier 2 certifications (RG 146) that comply with ASIC standards. See full bio

Graham's expertise

Graham has written 49 Finder guides across topics including:

Home loans and the housing market
Credit cards & personal finance
Finder Awards
Retail economics & FMCG
Travel
Finder's RBA Cash Rate Survey, Consumer Sentiment Tracker, Cost of Living Pressure Gauge and Property Investment Index

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Find out which suburbs are forecasted for high price growth in Sydney.