Lakemba (postcode 2195) sits in the City of Canterbury-Bankstown, approximately 12 kilometres south-west of the Sydney CBD, within the inner south-west corridor of Greater Sydney. Its SEIFA IRSAD raw score of 885 places it in decile 1 of 10 nationally and at the 7th percentile within New South Wales, firmly in the disadvantaged band. That reading reflects concentrated low-income households, high renter dependency, and below-average personal incomes across the postcode frame. For investors, this is the macro context that PropertyRanker weighs; it is not a verdict on any individual listing.
ABS 2021 IRSAD release. Score 885 (national mean = 1000).
Lakemba is a dense, renter-heavy suburb where approximately 60 percent of households rent and around 70 percent of dwellings are apartments or units. The suburb sits inside the Cooks River watershed, which is tidal at its edge, and that geography is a material input for flood and overlay risk assessments. The SEIFA score of 885 is 115 points below the national mean of 1000, which directly suppresses PropertyRanker's economic_strength score and elevates both hazard_risk and entry_point_risk signals. These three criteria are macro-level inputs; they reflect postcode-wide conditions, not the specific floor plan, strata history, or street position of a given listing.
The suburb's affordability profile and high renter concentration make it structurally more relevant to yield-oriented strategies than to pure capital growth plays. PropertyRanker's High Yield strategy anchors around a 6 percent gross yield target, and its Balanced strategy sits near 5 percent; both are more plausible starting points for analysis here than the Capital Growth anchor of around 3.5 percent, though no yield figure should be assumed without scoring the specific listing against current comparable rentals. The unit segment dominates transaction volume, and the postcode's density means supply additions from new approvals can move vacancy quickly. Investors should treat the SEIFA reading as a structural headwind on the economic_strength score while recognising that a low entry price point can still produce a competitive yield outcome at the listing level, depending on the specific asset.
Lakemba's unit market is the dominant segment, with CoreLogic data (via yourinvestmentpropertymag.com.au) recording a current median unit price of $539,000 and 10% annual growth to April 2026, while the house median sits at $1,480,000 with a slight -1.33% annual decline over the same period. Propertyvalue.com.au (Cotality/CoreLogic) reports 45 house sales in the past 12 months with an average vendor discount of -7.3% and 33 days on market, and heatmaps.com.au recorded a 2025 full-year unit median of $516,500 with +11.8% annual growth. HtAG Analytics notes stock on market at just 0.36% and a vacancy rate of 1.38%, signalling constrained supply conditions supporting the unit price growth trend.
Anchor points pulled per refresh from publicly available suburb profiles. Approximate; not a moving average.
Vacancy is low and stable at 1.38% and days on market are steady at 32-33 days, but a vendor discount of -7.3% on houses and a house price decline of -1.33% indicate vendors are conceding ground, producing a mixed or steady overall reading.
Sources: Lakemba NSW 2195 Suburb Profile & Property Report (2026-07-10); Lakemba House Prices & Property Trends (2026-01-01); Lakemba NSW 2195 Property Prices, Rent, Yield & Growth (2026-07-27); Lakemba, NSW 2195 Property Market and House Prices 2026 (2026-01-01); Lakemba: The suburb on the Sydney Metro with a median unit price of $450,000 (2025-05-08) · Refreshed 7 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 1 shown above gives a listing in Lakemba a softer starting line on economic strength, though often a firmer one on entry-price risk, since less advantaged postcodes usually carry lower 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 tends to make the Yield (6% anchor) and Regional (7% anchor) strategies more reachable, because a lower entry price lifts the gross yield a listing can achieve, while a Growth result usually depends on a specific catalyst such as an infrastructure or renewal pipeline.
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.
The Cooks River watershed boundary means flood overlay status varies materially by street and even by lot; do not assume a postcode-level hazard reading applies uniformly. Strata health is a critical variable in a suburb where apartments dominate: check the owners corporation financials, the sinking fund balance, and any outstanding special levies before drawing conclusions. Vacancy in a high-renter market can shift faster than the postcode median suggests, so confirm the current SQM vacancy figure for 2195 at the time of analysis rather than relying on any point-in-time figure cited elsewhere. Pricing should be benchmarked against recent comparable sales within the same dwelling type and street tier, not against the broader postcode median, given the wide spread between house and unit values here. Score the specific listing in PropertyRanker to get a verdict that accounts for current SQM vacancy, body corporate health, flood and overlay status, and pricing against recent comparable sales.
Lakemba's SEIFA IRSAD score of 885 (decile 1 nationally, 7th percentile in NSW) signals a disadvantaged economic base, which weighs on PropertyRanker's economic_strength, hazard_risk, and entry_point_risk criteria. That does not make every listing here a poor investment; a specific apartment with strong rental demand, a healthy strata fund, and a price below recent comparable sales can still score well inside that postcode frame. The data suggests investors should stress-test yield assumptions carefully and verify flood overlay and vacancy conditions at the listing level before drawing conclusions.
Given the suburb's high renter concentration and affordability profile, PropertyRanker's High Yield strategy (anchored around 6 percent gross yield) and Balanced strategy (around 5 percent) are the more relevant starting frameworks than the Capital Growth strategy, which targets around 3.5 percent and typically suits lower-yield, higher-growth corridors. Whether a specific listing actually clears those yield thresholds depends on the current asking rent, the purchase price, and body corporate costs, none of which can be assumed from the postcode median alone. Score the individual listing in PropertyRanker for a strategy-matched verdict.
The primary macro risks flagged by the SEIFA reading are income fragility among tenants and sensitivity to economic downturns, both of which can translate into arrears pressure and vacancy spikes. The suburb sits within the Cooks River watershed, meaning flood and stormwater overlay risk varies by street and lot and must be checked individually. In a market where roughly 70 percent of dwellings are apartments, strata-specific risks including underfunded sinking funds and deferred maintenance are also material and are not visible at the postcode level.
PropertyRanker uses SEIFA IRSAD as a primary input for three of its twelve scoring criteria: economic_strength, hazard_risk, and entry_point_risk. Lakemba's raw score of 885 (115 points below the national mean) will produce lower scores on those three criteria compared with a suburb sitting at or above the mean, all else being equal. 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 total score materially in either direction.
Belmore (2192) and Campsie (2194) are the closest reference suburbs with meaningfully different profiles; Campsie in particular carries higher commercial activity and has historically attracted a broader buyer demographic. A SEIFA comparison across these postcodes would show whether Lakemba's disadvantaged band is shared by its neighbours or represents a local low point within the corridor. PropertyRanker scores each suburb and each listing independently, so the most reliable comparison is to run the specific listings side by side in the tool rather than relying on suburb-level generalisations.
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