Lake Illawarra is in Shellharbour LGA, NSW, postcode 2528, with population 3,288.
The page has enough signal to be useful, but the story is mixed rather than decisive. Use compare mode to pressure-test it against stronger nearby options, then use the calculator if it still makes the shortlist.
Transport coverage adds a practical access signal.
At / near its all-time high
Indicative cashflow is interest-only and excludes tax — use the calculator for a full projection. Turnover divides recorded sales by an estimated household count (population over average household size).
Bar = this suburb's percentile · tick = typical (median) peer · stability drivers signed (+ = steadier)
Relative grade across Australian suburbs, combining qp's capital-growth (multi-year CAGR + cycle timing), rental-yield, and stability (price volatility + cycle + affordability) metrics via a three-pillar property-scoring method with an imbalance penalty. Within-Australia relative, indicative only — not financial advice.
48% of homes here are owner-occupied and 48% rented, with 5% of landlords negatively geared.
48% rented — renter-heavy areas turn over faster and are more exposed to rate moves and investor sentiment. Social housing is 15% of dwellings — check tenant mix and resale demand.
ABS Census 2021 tenure (G37), ATO postcode rental statistics, and QuickProperty's investor-exposure index. Owner-occupied = owned outright + with a mortgage.
New-loan repayment $4,281/mo vs median rent $2,652/mo (+61% · +$376/wk)
At 4.0%: $3,409/mo (-872) · at 6.0% (current): $4,281/mo · at 8.0%: $5,239/mo (+958)
Assumes a 20% deposit and a 30-year principal-and-interest loan at the current RBA new owner-occupier variable rate, against median weekly household income (ABS Census 2021). Stress bands follow the 30% / 45%-of-income thresholds used in ANZ-CoreLogic and AIHW reporting. Rent vs buy compares that repayment with the suburb's median advertised rent; it excludes rates, insurance, maintenance and deposit opportunity cost.
Alternatives are similar-priced suburbs (0.7–1.4x this suburb's median) in other council areas that exceed it on the named metric. Indicative — not financial advice.
This suburb 16.1x · NSW median 11.7x — less affordable than the NSW typical
Nationally · more affordable to buy than 20% of AU suburbs
This suburb 57% · NSW median 21%
Nationally · lighter rent burden than 0% of AU suburbs
Owners with a mortgage repay a median of $1,733/mo, while renters pay about $2,652/mo — renting runs $919/mo higher on these medians.
Serviceability line: a household needs about $3,293/wk to hold a new loan on the median house at 30% of income (20% deposit, 30-year P&I, current RBA rate).
At the median asking rent, about 77% of households here would spend more than 30% of income on rent (rent stress line: $2,040/wk income).
Getting to work: 76% drive, 2% public transport, 1% walk or cycle, 18% worked from home (2021 Census, taken during COVID-era work-from-home arrangements).
Top 42% most liveable of 4,565Australian suburbs.
Bar = this suburb's percentile · tick = typical (median) peer
Suburb-level access-density index (not an address-level walk-time score), normalised within Australian suburbs. Method based on the Urban Liveability Index (Higgs et al. 2019) and Walk Score — three equal-weighted domains combined with an imbalance penalty.
Estimated exposure to NSW RFS Bush Fire Prone Land (CC BY), point-sampled across the suburb. This shows how much of the suburb sits within the official hazard layer — it is not a Bushfire Attack Level (BAL) rating or a property-level assessment. Obtain a BAL assessment (AS 3959) for an individual property.
Land-use mix estimated by point-sampling the suburb against NSW EPI Land Zoning polygons (CC BY 4.0). This is a suburb-level snapshot of planning zones, not a parcel-level zoning certificate or development advice. Check the relevant planning scheme for an individual property.
ABS population projection (2022 base) for the Warilla SA2 statistical area — the finest official projection grain available; suburb-level projections do not exist.
Lake Illawarra is a smaller residential area in New South Wales within the Shellharbour local government area (postcode 2528). The area has roughly 3,288 residents and a settled mid-life population, with a median age of 43. Households earn a median income of $56K per year, with an average household size of 2.1 people. Recent annual estimates show population movement into the broader catchment, with population growth running at +1.9% year-on-year at the LGA level. NSW employment has moved +1.2% year-on-year in the official ABS Labour Force trend series, which provides the broader jobs backdrop for this suburb. NSW also had 35 Commonwealth-backed major projects under construction, 17 underway, and 67 in planning as at 2025-09-01, which is useful as a broader delivery backdrop rather than a suburb-specific project count. The most common occupations are technicians & trades, community & personal service, professionals. Employment in the area leans toward healthcare and construction. The top ancestries reported are English, Australian, Scottish.
The median house price in Lake Illawarra is $893,000, having increased by 3.5% over the past year. Units have a median price of $703,000 (+0.8% YoY). The current median weekly rent is $612. This gives a gross rental yield of approximately 3.6%. The median monthly mortgage repayment is $1,733.
Lake Illawarra is served by 2 schools, including 1 primary, 1 secondary. The average ICSEA score is 924, which is below the national average of 1,000. Public transport access includes 28 bus stops. The crime rate in the Shellharbour LGA is below average at 2,875 incidents per 100,000 population.
From an investment perspective, Gross rental yield sits at around 3.6% (moderate yield). Property prices sit below the state median ($893K/$1.5M), which can point to relative value. The price-to-income ratio of 16.1x is considered stretched. House prices have moved +3.5% year-on-year. Population growth of +1.9% year-on-year points to stable demand fundamentals. Building approvals have changed +0% year-on-year, indicating steady development activity.
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Lake Illawarra has enough direct local evidence for a first-pass decision.
QuickProperty mixes release files, Census baselines, and matched local services on this page. Read the status panel before treating every metric as equally fresh.
Official sale records parsed from cached Bulk PSI ZIP files with parser guardrails for token sales, non-house zoning, and low-value strata component records
Use current rent as a starting signal, not as a fixed underwriting truth.
Schools, transport, and hospitals are useful as presence signals, but they still have different source cadences.
Lake Illawarra is in the Shellharbour Local Government Area, NSW, postcode 2528. Council-level context for Shellharbour LGA (suburb mix, population, rent, and price coverage) is available on the QuickProperty LGA page.
The current median house price in Lake Illawarra, NSW is $893K, based on the latest available sales data from state Valuers General offices and ABS Data by Region.
The median weekly rent in Lake Illawarra is $612/wk, based on the current market rent dataset. The current rent signal is rent context available.
Rent context available: Lake Illawarra has usable rent context. Use this as a suburb screening signal before comparing candidates or modelling a purchase; the matching rent ranking can provide broader market context.
QuickProperty's investment signals for Lake Illawarra show: Moderate Yield, Below Median, Stretched. These are computed from price, rent, income, and population data — not an opaque score.
Property prices come from state Valuers General offices and ABS Data by Region. Demographics are from ABS Census 2021. School ICSEA scores are from ACARA. Crime statistics are from state police agencies. Transport data is sourced from GTFS feeds.
Property prices update quarterly. RBA macro indicators update with each deploy. Demographics are from Census 2021. School ICSEA scores are from ACARA 2025.