Clifton Hill (3068) sits 4 kilometres north-east of the Melbourne CBD inside the City of Yarra, one of the most socioeconomically advantaged local government areas in Victoria. Its SEIFA IRSAD score of 1133 places it in the 10th national decile and at the 98th state percentile, meaning it ranks above 98 percent of Victorian suburbs on the combined index of relative socioeconomic advantage and disadvantage. That reading reflects a suburb where household incomes, educational attainment, and occupational profiles sit well above national norms, and it has held that position through successive census cycles.
ABS 2021 IRSAD release. Score 1133 (national mean = 1000).
A SEIFA score of 1133 is 133 points above the national mean of 1000. In PropertyRanker's twelve-signal model, this feeds directly into three criteria: economic_strength (where high scores support demand durability), hazard_risk (where advantaged suburbs tend to carry lower exposure to economic vacancy shocks), and entry_point_risk (where the score is one input alongside current pricing and comparable sales). On those three macro signals, Clifton Hill reads as low-risk. Investors should hold that finding alongside what SEIFA cannot measure. The score is a postcode-level aggregate. It says nothing about a specific building's condition, strata levy trajectory, flood or heritage overlay status, or whether a given asking price is justified by recent comparable sales in the same street. Clifton Hill's housing stock is predominantly Victorian and Edwardian freestanding homes and low-rise flats on a suburb of just 1.57 square kilometres. Supply is structurally constrained, which has historically supported capital values, but that same constraint compresses gross yields. Investors targeting the Capital Growth strategy (gross yield anchor around 3.5 percent) will find the macro frame here broadly consistent with that approach. Investors running a High Yield or Regional strategy (anchors of 6 to 7 percent) should stress-test current asking rents carefully, because the entry price required to access this suburb typically makes those yield thresholds difficult to clear without meaningful rental growth assumptions. The Balanced strategy (around 5 percent) sits in between and warrants a line-by-line assessment of each listing rather than a postcode-level assumption.
According to CoreLogic data published via yourinvestmentpropertymag.com.au (as of June 2026), Clifton Hill houses recorded a median sale price of $1,625,000 with annual capital growth of -0.31%, while propertyvalue.com.au (Cotality/CoreLogic) reported 79 house sales over the past 12 months at a median of $1.7M, down 0.3% annually, with an average vendor discount of -6.0% and 37 days on market. The Valuer-General Victoria (via inthesuburbs.com.au) reported a median house price of $1,735,000 for the June quarter 2025, down 0.9% year-on-year, and grokipedia.com noted median house prices reached approximately $1.55 million by 2023. The market is characterised by tight listing supply and very low vacancy per htag.com.au, though vendor discounting remains elevated and price growth is marginally negative over the past 12 months.
Anchor points pulled per refresh from publicly available suburb profiles. Approximate; not a moving average.
Vacancy is tight per htag.com.au, days on market are stable at 37 days, but vendor discounting at -6.0% is elevated and price growth is marginally negative, indicating a cool market with supply tightness offset by vendor concessions and soft price momentum.
Sources: Clifton Hill VIC 3068 Suburb Profile & Property Report (2026-09-09); Clifton Hill House Prices & Property Trends (2026-01-01); Clifton Hill VIC 3068 Suburb Profile (2025-09-01); Clifton Hill VIC 3068 Property Market and House Prices 2026 (2026-01-01); Clifton Hill, Victoria — Grokipedia (2026-01-14) · Refreshed 15 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 Clifton Hill 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 acting on the SEIFA signal, confirm the following at the listing level. First, check current SQM vacancy data for the 3068 postcode; inner-north Melbourne vacancy can move quickly with new apartment supply in adjacent suburbs. Second, if the property is in a strata scheme, obtain the owners corporation financials and confirm the sinking fund is adequately provisioned; older converted buildings in this suburb can carry deferred maintenance. Third, pull the planning certificate and check for heritage overlay, flood overlay, or any other overlay that could restrict renovation or affect insurability. Fourth, price the listing against comparable sales from the past 90 days in the same street type, not just the broader suburb median. A strong SEIFA reading confirms a favourable macro frame, but it does not confirm that a specific listing is priced correctly or structurally sound. Score the listing directly in PropertyRanker to get a verdict that accounts for vacancy, body corporate health, overlay status, and pricing against recent comparable sales.
The macro signals are broadly supportive. A SEIFA IRSAD score of 1133, sitting at the 98th state percentile, feeds into PropertyRanker's economic_strength, hazard_risk, and entry_point_risk criteria in a way that reads as low-risk on all three. What the score cannot tell you is whether a specific building is priced appropriately, whether a strata scheme is well-managed, or whether a given asking rent is achievable today. Score the individual listing to translate the postcode-level strength into a property-level verdict.
The Capital Growth strategy, with its gross-yield anchor of around 3.5 percent, is the approach most consistent with Clifton Hill's profile: a structurally constrained suburb of 1.57 square kilometres, predominantly Victorian and Edwardian housing stock, and entry prices that tend to compress gross yields. The High Yield and Regional strategies, targeting anchors of 6 to 7 percent, are harder to clear here without relying on meaningful rental growth assumptions that the data does not yet confirm. The Balanced strategy at around 5 percent sits in between and requires a line-by-line assessment of each listing rather than a postcode-wide assumption.
Heritage overlay exposure is a concrete, property-level risk to verify: Yarra City Council confirms that almost the whole of Clifton Hill is covered by Heritage Overlays HO316 and HO317, which can constrain renovation scope and add permit complexity for Victorian and Edwardian dwellings. Parts of the suburb also carry a Special Building Overlay (flood zone designation), meaning individual sites near low-lying areas warrant a flood-risk check through VicPlan before committing. SEIFA measures socioeconomic conditions at the postcode level and says nothing about either of these site-specific overlays, building condition, or strata levy trajectory.
Clifton Hill sits 4 kilometres north-east of the Melbourne CBD and is served by Clifton Hill Station, a Metro Trains junction for the Mernda and Hurstbridge lines, providing direct rail access to the city. Infrastructure quality of this kind supports the demand-durability component that sits behind PropertyRanker's economic_strength signal, because tenant and owner-occupier pools drawn to inner-city access tend to be more stable across economic cycles. That said, PropertyRanker scores a specific listing, not a suburb in isolation, so transit access is one input among twelve signals and does not override pricing or yield assessment.
SEIFA is one input into three of twelve criteria: economic_strength, hazard_risk, and entry_point_risk. The remaining signals cover factors such as current pricing relative to comparable sales, rental yield against the strategy's gross-yield anchor, and property-specific attributes that vary from address to address. Because Clifton Hill's housing stock spans everything from freestanding Victorian homes to low-rise flats, two listings on the same street can score quite differently once pricing, yield, and building-level data are applied. Run each listing individually through the tool rather than relying on the postcode's strong SEIFA reading as a proxy for the whole suburb.
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