Bungendore (postcode 2621) is a historic town in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, sitting within Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council roughly 38 kilometres east of Canberra. Its SEIFA IRSAD score of 1112 places it in the national decile 10, meaning it ranks among the most socioeconomically advantaged areas in Australia relative to the national mean of 1000. Within New South Wales alone, the suburb sits at the 85th state percentile, confirming that its income and resource profile is well above the state average. That reading reflects a resident base that skews toward dual-income professional households, many of whom commute to Canberra or work in the ACT public service.
ABS 2021 IRSAD release. Score 1112 (national mean = 1000).
A SEIFA IRSAD score of 1112 is a meaningful signal for three of PropertyRanker's twelve scoring criteria. On economic_strength, the score indicates a resident population with above-average incomes, lower unemployment exposure, and stronger capacity to absorb mortgage stress, all of which support demand stability over a cycle. On hazard_risk, higher-SEIFA areas tend to correlate with better-maintained infrastructure and lower exposure to chronic socioeconomic hazards, though physical risks such as bushfire overlay and rural road access remain suburb-specific and must be checked at the listing level. On entry_point_risk, a decile 10 reading reduces the probability of a distressed-sale discount environment, but it also compresses the yield floor: buyers typically pay a premium for the demographic profile, which pushes gross yields toward the lower end of the range.
Bungendore's growth as a Canberra dormitory town is a structural demand driver. The Kings Highway corridor and rail access to Sydney give the town connectivity that most regional NSW towns at this distance from a capital city do not have. The resident mix of public servants, defence personnel, and farming families creates a relatively stable rental demand base. However, the town is small, and the total rental pool is limited. Vacancy can move sharply on a handful of listings, which is why current SQM vacancy data matters more here than the SEIFA reading alone.
For strategy matching, the suburb's premium pricing and high-income demographic align most naturally with a Capital Growth strategy, where PropertyRanker anchors gross yield expectations around 3.5 percent. Investors seeking yields closer to the Balanced anchor of 5 percent or above should verify current asking rents against comparable sales before assuming the numbers work, because the SEIFA score alone does not confirm yield.
According to PRD Bungendore's 1st Half 2026 Market Update, the suburb recorded a median house price of $1,007,500 in Q4 2025, reflecting an annual softening of -8.4% from Q4 2024, while house sales volume surged 20.7% to 35 sales in the same quarter. Propertyvalue.com.au (Cotality data) reports a rolling 12-month median of $1.1M with 124 house sales, up 5.74% annually, and an average vendor discount of -3.8% with an average of 67 days on market. The vacancy rate spiked to 6.3% in December 2025 per PRD, well above the prior year's 2.7%, though PRD notes this is likely seasonal given the small rental market size.
Anchor points pulled per refresh from publicly available suburb profiles. Approximate; not a moving average.
Vacancy spiked to 6.3% in December 2025 (loosening), days on market are broadly stable at 61-67 days, and vendor discounts have narrowed to -3.8% from -5.7% in 2023, producing a mixed overall signal that resolves to steady.
Sources: Bungendore Property Market Update 1st Half 2026 (2026-03-12); Bungendore Property Market Update 1st Half 2025 (2025-01-01); Bungendore House Prices & Property Trends (2026-01-01); Bungendore NSW 2621: Suburb Profile & Property Report (2026-06-04); Bungendore Property Market Update 1st Half of 2022 (2022-02-04) · Refreshed 9 Sep 2026
PropertyRanker scores any Australian property against 12 criteria across three pillars: Growth, Cashflow, and Risk. SEIFA is a primary signal for economic strength and a supporting one for entry-price risk. It also informs the crime side of hazard risk, though physical overlays like flood, bushfire and coastal exposure, and recorded crime data where available, take priority there. The decile of 10 shown above gives a listing in Bungendore a stronger starting line on economic strength than the national median postcode, and a softer one on entry-price risk, since more advantaged postcodes usually carry higher entry prices.
On top of that, PropertyRanker chooses one of four strategies (Balanced, Growth, Yield, Regional) and applies a per-strategy yield anchor. The anchors are 3.5% for Growth, 5% for Balanced, 6% for Yield, and 7% for Regional. A postcode at this level of relative advantage tends to suit the Growth (3.5% anchor) and Balanced (5% anchor) strategies more readily than Yield (6%) or Regional (7%), because a higher entry price compresses the gross yield a listing can reach without a specific value-add.
Read the scoring guide for the full criteria list and how the verdict thresholds work.
SEIFA is a postcode-level read. The fastest sanity check on any single decile reading is to compare it against the suburbs that surround it.
Before drawing any conclusion from the SEIFA reading, an investor should confirm several things at the listing level. First, check the current SQM vacancy rate for postcode 2621: a small town can tip from tight to loose vacancy quickly, and the postcode-level SEIFA score cannot see that. Second, review any bushfire overlay or rural land-use constraint on the specific title, because properties on the rural fringe of Bungendore can carry overlay conditions that affect insurability and lender appetite. Third, if the listing is a strata or community title, obtain the body corporate financials and check for deferred maintenance or special levy exposure. Fourth, price the listing against recent comparable sales in the same postcode rather than relying on suburb-wide medians, because stock in Bungendore ranges from heritage cottages to new-estate homes and the variance within the postcode is wide. Score the specific listing in PropertyRanker to get a verdict that accounts for all twelve criteria, including the live vacancy, overlay status, and pricing against recent comparable sales that a postcode-level SEIFA reading cannot see.
Bungendore's SEIFA IRSAD score of 1112 (national decile 10) signals a high-income, resource-rich resident base, which supports demand stability and reduces exposure to socioeconomic hazard risk. That is a positive macro indicator, but it does not make any specific listing a sound investment on its own. The suburb's small rental pool means vacancy can shift quickly, and the premium pricing typical of a decile 10 area compresses gross yields, so investors need to verify the numbers at the listing level rather than relying on the postcode frame.
The suburb's high-income demographic and premium pricing profile align most naturally with a Capital Growth strategy, where PropertyRanker anchors gross yield expectations around 3.5 percent. A Balanced strategy targeting around 5 percent gross yield is possible but requires careful verification of current asking rents against recent comparable sales, because the SEIFA score alone does not confirm that yields reach that threshold. High Yield and Regional strategies, which target 6 to 7 percent gross yields, are unlikely to be supported by current pricing in a national decile 10 suburb without a specific listing that deviates from the local norm.
The primary risks to verify are vacancy concentration (a small rental pool means a few vacant properties can move the vacancy rate materially), bushfire and rural overlay exposure on fringe titles, and the yield compression that comes with premium pricing in a decile 10 suburb. The town's dependence on Canberra employment as a demand driver is also a concentration risk: any structural shift in ACT public service employment could affect tenant demand. PropertyRanker's scoring model addresses hazard_risk and entry_point_risk using the SEIFA reading as one input, but overlay and vacancy data must be checked at the listing level for a complete picture.
PropertyRanker uses the SEIFA IRSAD reading as a primary input for three of its twelve scoring criteria: economic_strength, hazard_risk, and entry_point_risk. For Bungendore, the score of 1112 (national decile 10, NSW 85th percentile) contributes positively to all three criteria at the macro level. The remaining nine criteria, including current SQM vacancy, body corporate health, flood and overlay status, and pricing against recent comparable sales, are assessed at the listing level and can move the final score significantly in either direction regardless of the postcode's SEIFA band.
Bungendore, Wamboin (2620), and Carwoola (2620) all sit within Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council and share a similar high-income Southern Tablelands demographic, so their macro SEIFA profiles are broadly comparable. The key differences for investors are stock type, lot size, and infrastructure access: Bungendore has a town centre, rail access, and a more established rental market, while Wamboin and Carwoola are more purely rural-residential with smaller tenant pools. Investors should score each specific listing in PropertyRanker rather than assuming the suburbs are interchangeable, because vacancy, overlay, and comparable sales data can diverge meaningfully across postcodes even within the same LGA.
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