Regional Property Investment: 9 Areas in the ACT, Illawarra and Riverina

Short answer: if you’re asking me where the “best” property investment opportunities in Australia are right now, I can only really answer for the patch I actually work in — the ACT and the corridor running south through the Illawarra and out into the Riverina. I’m not going to pretend I have genuine insight into Perth vacancy rates or Brisbane’s Olympic precinct from a desk in Canberra. What I do have is years of serviceability assessments and valuations across this specific corridor, and some honest observations about where the real opportunities — and real traps — actually sit.

Canberra’s Fringe: Googong and the New Estates

The growth suburbs on Canberra’s southern edge — Googong in particular, technically NSW but functionally Canberra — get a lot of investor attention because the land is cheaper than established Canberra and the commute is manageable. What I see in serviceability terms: these are almost entirely house-and-land packages, which means construction loan complexity most first-time investors underestimate — progress payments, fixed-price contract risk, and valuations that can lag actual build costs if trades pricing moves during construction. Worth the effort for the right buyer, but budget more contingency than the display village suggests.

Queanbeyan and the Border Towns

Queanbeyan rides Canberra’s economy without Canberra’s price tag, which sounds like a straightforward arbitrage play — and often is. But I’d flag that public-sector employment concentration cuts both ways: strong, stable serviceability profiles for tenants and buyers when Commonwealth employment is steady, but it’s not the diversified economic base some investors assume when they hear “government town.”

Wollongong and the Northern Illawarra Escarpment

Wollongong genuinely benefits from Sydney spillover, and I see it in the applications — buyers priced out of Sydney’s south-west bringing Sydney-sized deposits into an Illawarra market. The complication is the escarpment itself: properties higher up the hill can face landslip risk zoning, which affects both insurability and how comfortable some lenders are with the security. It’s a real factor in valuations there, not a technicality — ask before you fall in love with the view.

Shellharbour and the Southern Illawarra

Less glamorous than Wollongong’s CBD apartments, but the southern Illawarra has genuine owner-occupier demand driven by people who work in Wollongong or commute to Sydney and simply can’t afford either. Rental demand here tends to be steadier than flashier options, though capital growth is more gradual — this is a hold-for-the-long-term proposition, not a flip.

Griffith and the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area

Griffith is a market I have genuine, specific experience with, and it doesn’t behave like a capital city at all. Agricultural income cycles — a good or bad harvest — flow directly into local serviceability and property demand in a way that’s far more direct than anywhere metro. Valuations here are also constrained by thin sales volume: fewer comparable sales means valuers have less to work with, and I’ve seen purchase prices and valuations diverge more often here than in thicker markets. Anyone buying in Griffith needs a deposit buffer for that possibility, not just the purchase price.

Wagga Wagga

Wagga has the most diversified economy of the Riverina towns I deal with — defence, health, education, agriculture all contributing — which shows up as more resilient serviceability profiles across a wider range of occupations than the single-industry towns nearby. It’s not a hot market in the “stunning returns” sense; it’s a steady one, and steady is underrated.

Cooma and the Snowy Monaro

Snowy 2.0 construction activity has genuinely changed the rental picture in Cooma — I’ve covered this in more detail elsewhere on the site because it’s a real, current shift, not a speculative one. The caution: construction-driven rental demand has a horizon. Know when the project workforce is expected to wind down before you price your yield assumptions on today’s numbers.

Yass and Goulburn: the Commuter Corridor

Both towns sit on the Canberra–Sydney corridor and both have picked up buyers priced out of Canberra specifically. The serviceability pattern I see is Canberra-income buyers taking on Riverina-adjacent mortgages — which generally assess well, since the income is metro-level against a regional price tag. The risk is concentration: if a chunk of local buyers all commute to the same employer base, that’s worth knowing before you assume the rental pool is as diverse as the town looks.

Albury and the Border Region

Albury’s proximity to Wodonga across the Victorian border adds a genuine cross-border dynamic to valuations and rental demand that towns further from a state line don’t have. It’s a more mature, larger regional market than Griffith or Cooma, with correspondingly thicker sales data — which in practice means fewer of the valuation-shortfall surprises I mentioned above.

What I’d Actually Tell You

If there’s one honest theme across this whole corridor, it’s that regional valuations run on thinner data than city ones, and that shows up as real risk at settlement — not just a number on a spreadsheet. Before you commit to anywhere on this list, ask your broker or lender specifically about recent comparable sales in that street, not just the suburb, and build a deposit buffer for the gap if the valuation comes in short. That single habit has saved more of my clients from a stressful settlement than any “hot suburb” tip ever has.

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Written by Michael Wignall, Lending Area Manager with 30+ years in banking and home lending across the ACT, Illawarra, and Riverina. Got a question or an idea for a post? Get in touch.