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The Market Is Cooling: Here's Exactly Where to Buy Right Now | Market Updates 2026 · The Follio Property Podcast

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Inflation came down a bit in February, but it's still too high and the war will make it worse. The worst is yet to come for Australian households. Inflation could soar above 5%. Well, the Reserve Bank is this morning wanting a recession. It may be the only way...
1:09
Sentiments changing globally. No one's immune. So we've got our war driving prices of fuel and that has huge implications. Food, woods, water. So inflation is going to rise. The only lever our RBA can pull is interest rates. We don't have a housing crisis, Rhys. We've got a migration crisis. 57,000 people arrived in Australia.
1:28
in January 2026, the highest ever recorded in history. We've got a government and they're not doing anything to bring on any supply rates. Look at Darwin. Darwin actually completely came off a cliff, 0.2%. In the last seven days, homeowner numbers have halved. So these markets quickly change on the back of sentiment. Perth leading the way, 2.3%. Sydney and Melbourne not seeing any growth. Do you see the sentiment changing in the next couple of months? The pendulum has shifted. You want to be greedy when those are fearful? History will tell us this is a better time to buy. Have some power in the negotiation.
1:58
You're listening to the Folio Property Podcast. I'm Rhys Bettle and I'm here each week with my co-host Lachlan Delahunty. Lachlan, we did the value add strategy a couple of weeks back now. Loads of positive comments, a lot of feedback on that one. Do you want to just talk through some of the feedback that's come across your desk?
2:13
Yeah, because I think it's such a broad topic, Rhys, because value-add is anything from subdivision through to the 500 different ways you can renovate a house or add value to a house. So hard to sort of cover off on every individual question in terms of every sort of listener's personal situation. So those that...
2:33
want to understand what this looks like, we call it the VAS strategy, just comment VAS in Spotify or YouTube and we'll get someone to reach out at Booker Media and in with me to talk through your specific situation and or ideas around what a value add strategy can look like because it's a great way to artificially increase the value of the property without just being so reliant on the market conditions. But there's so many different ways you can do it.
2:57
Hey guys, quick thing to share. If you're serious about investing in Australian property right now, you need to see what we put together. It's called the National Investment Report and it's our brand new monthly deep dive into exactly where the market is moving, what the data is saying and what the smart investors are looking at right now. The March edition has just dropped and you can get the first access completely free. Just scan the QR code on the screen right now or click in the link below to fill out the form.
3:23
Let's touch on the month's performance from a capital city perspective. We won't go like a deep dive like we usually do, but just touch on the highlights. And I think there's a couple of data points that you and me have been discussing with our economists over the last couple of weeks, and we thought it'd be interesting to address to the audience.
3:38
Looking at the figures though, Perth leading the way again at 2.3%. All the big players who have been making the moves over the last 12 to 24 months. Brisbane at 1.6%. Adelaide at 1.3%. Hobart still up there at 1.2%. And then the big one was obviously Sydney and Melbourne not seeing any growth off the back of one interest rate rise. And obviously the sentiment at that time with an incoming interest rate rise, which we've now already seen.
4:03
Probably not too dissimilar to what we predicted at the start of the year, Reece. Like we did say the strong movers are going to be the Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane and Darwin. Darwin actually completely came off a cliff, 0.2%. Okay, that surprises me. And that probably will have a lot to do with the change in sentiment. And that's why our sentiment data we're going to talk about today, I think, is probably the most important data sets that we're tracking. And obviously, this is data that we self-source because sentiment moves markets. And data, people don't realise...
4:30
There's a lot of data out there and most of it is delayed anywhere from a month to sometimes six months where our sentiment data is live and we're talking within the last hours if not the last few days. So it's really up-to-date data which tells us exactly how markets are feeling, how their behaviour, what's the psychology around the buyers and buyers is the demand side of...
4:49
the equation. So Darwin, that is an interesting stat and I think that's based off the change of sentiment. The investment sentiment potentially dried up and that market has been moving predominantly if you speak to buyers agents on the ground and real estate agents on the ground, predominantly by investors. We're talking 80, 90% investment activity. So interesting.
5:07
That is very interesting, actually, because it's probably died off a lot quicker than what we thought. Not sure if the sentiment is around, you know, with these incoming potential changes to negative gearing or capital gains tax exemptions, which, you know, Darwin is generally a place where landlords that have got multiple properties are probably honing in on. So I wonder if that's probably a core reason that it's slowed down as well.
5:27
Yeah, and there's a lot of uncertainty. We're going to talk about that today, what that looks like for our listener base and our clients and everything else. And one thing you'll see, I think it just echoes and reinforces what to buy, which is own occupier locations, not where the droves are going in the investment activity. Because these are the moments, these are the periods of time where those markets are going to get smashed.
5:47
and you're going to see your regional Queensland markets come off a cliff because all that investment activity is now starting to come out. You can see it already. Days on market has shot up. If you could look at a graph like a ski ramp, days on markets are flying. You're going to see vacancies increase, and you're going to see, I think, quite a steep fall in valuations as that market comes off by the sounds of as quickly as Darwin.
6:09
What's your thoughts on the Perth market? We've done a lot of podcasts over the last 12 months on Perth. We haven't really spoken about it at too much length on the most recent months' podcasts. 2.3% and this year done well over 6% and stock availability is still at all-time lows, although it's creeping a little bit up, still historic lows. Do you see the sentiment changing in the Perth market at all over the next couple of months? Sentiment's changing globally. So no-one's immune, no city, no town, every...
6:38
region in the world at the moment is carrying negative sentiment. But if you look more locally in Australia, it's compounded by this interest rate environment. So we've got a situation here where there's a war taking place, which is obviously driving prices of fuel, diesel, etc. And that has huge implications, not just in that specific commodity, it also has larger implications because everything requires transportation, right? So food or goods, water, people don't realise that these are the sorts of implications that can have. So inflation
7:07
Early predictions is going to rise. The only lever our RBA can pull is interest rates. So now everyone's forecasting three to four interest rates. So what does that do? Negative sentiment. So already you've seen in the week, in the last seven days, Reece, speaking to agents across Australia.
7:24
is home open numbers have halved. And in some instances, you've seen 10 to 15 groups go down to one or two groups going through a home open. So it's amazing, even when the supply and demand imbalance is so out of whack that these markets can so quickly change on the back of sentiment. What I've said to our clients, and you've heard me say it to the team, is...
7:42
not to want to take advantage of what is a really serious global and economic uncertainty. For me personally and for our clients, finally, the pendulum has shifted towards the buyer. It's been such a selling market now for the last three to five years, where for the first time in recent history, I think this uncertainty, this fear, we've seen it so many times take place in different forms. COVID in the most recent example...
8:10
that it is now finally some good buying conditions. We can see properties that are selling under the quoted amount. I think I read a statistic this morning that 75% of the Melbourne market is selling under the guided price. Fantastic as an investor trying to buy well, right? You want to be greedy when those are fearful. You want to be fearful when those are greedy. For me personally, this is a time where you are going to get better deals as an investor than you would have got two weeks ago, two months ago. Certainly...
8:38
12 months ago. And it's likely the prices you're able to accumulate assets in this period of uncertainty is going to look like extremely good buying in potentially six, nine, 12 months, right? And that's what we're going to look at. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work,
8:54
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9:20
that are watching us and viewing us. There'll be a graph that will be coming up on the screen right now, but I'll just talk it through for those that are just listening on the audio. This is our prop stack data looking at house price from March 2020, which is when the COVID lockdowns happened in Australia. And you can see every market, that's when it started to go on an increase. So arguably the most uncertain time was where all markets started to see a bit of an uptick.
9:47
Yeah, the difference is at that point in time, the government, you know, slashed interest rates and the market went on and tear. But you're 100% right. There's always a reason and the activity at the moment we've had just recent emails. A client reached out this morning on the way here saying, Lachlan, our strategy...
10:02
was to expand the portfolio to buy a property. What about all this uncertainty? The war, I think I'm going to put it on ice. And I was like, just went back and had a look at some emails that the period of COVID hit. And it was just almost copy and paste of the same email. It's like COVID's hit. We're really uncertain. We think we're just going to sit on the fence. And some people sat on the fence for two years, right? Some people sat on the fence for three years. There's always a reason not to do something. But in recent times, the best time to buy was that time.
10:26
two month period after COVID hit. And I was fortunate enough to get into the market at that point and those with the courage to do so, which it's not easy, it takes, it's the hardest thing to do when every headline, every person you speak to, your local barber, the guy at the pub, the bloke down at the local bowls club have all said the world's about to fall apart.
10:45
and they should be selling everything. And then you've got someone on a podcast or a property advisor that you've never met before saying, actually, history will tell us this is probably the better time to buy. It can be hard to comprehend. But I look back and, you know, I wish I had bought 40 or 50 properties in the two weeks post-COVID because that would have shown...
11:03
at this point in time, somewhere between 120% and 150% growth. Not saying that that's what you're going to see off the back of this wall, but I've already noted, Perth locally, an example, that a client of ours secured a property for 1.25% in the northern suburbs that without a doubt two weeks ago would have sold for 1.4%. That's a good buy, and if things do return to normal, which is quite probable, we know history will say that
11:26
There will be a time that we call quotation normal again, probably not in the too distant near future. As quickly, rates go up. The RBA have spoken about that our economy is flat. So we're a stagflation economy where that is the economy is flat if not going backwards, but interest rates are going up. That's not a good thing. So they're fearful of a recession. They don't want that to happen. So yes, they've got to increase rates quickly because they don't want to repeat what they did in COVID, left rates quickly.
11:53
stagnant for way too long. They've addressed that. So they want to curb behaviour spending. So they're going to increase them quickly. But the moment that inflation is no longer a risk and they feel like it's handled, rates will come off. And then what happens when rates come off, Reece? Money becomes cheaper. But more importantly, sentiment changes. You start to see headlines. Properties become easy to buy. It's more affordable. People have access to more debt. And you see markets run again. So do I want to be buying property
12:18
When rates are coming off and there's a stampede of investors trying to get into the market, and I'm competing with hundreds, thousands, at-home opens, 30, 40 groups, or do I want to buy when there's some headwinds, there's some negative media around it, but I'm only competing with maybe one offer to two offers compared to 10 offers, I know when I'd rather be buying. And that's when headwinds are in play and the headline media is negative, not when there's tailwinds and interest rates are coming down.
12:45
Speaking with a top real estate agent in Perth who was telling me on average seven to eight offers per property that he was listing. And within the last six or seven weeks, even before some of the second rate rise, he's now saying he's lucky to get two offers on those properties. So a lot of those Perth people that have been missing out for months, years, if in some cases, then now is probably a little bit more of an opportunity for them to get into the market.
13:08
Absolutely. And I'm personally now was sitting on the fence for East because the market got too hot to buy across Melbourne Inclusive. But now we're starting to see some good deals come across our desk that weren't there two weeks ago. Any tips for those buyers in areas like Melbourne or Sydney where it's an auction driven market? Anything that in these types of market dynamics that change where you can be a bit more aggressive and get a better deal?
13:35
It's a really good time to, I don't want to say because there's people out there that are hurting that need to say, you don't want to look like you're taking advantage of that, but our job is, to our client base, is to educate them on how to buy and how to buy well. And it's a good time to stick your teeth in and get a really good deal. So I have one that I was working on over the weekend, Rhys.
13:54
Obviously, I have one of our team, our buyer's agents representing me at auction. I said, pass it in. Let it pass in. Do not participate at the auction. Do not give the seller a hope that there's a buyer out there for this property. And there's that awkward silence. The auction starts and there's no bidders. And he goes, man, I think we could offer quite a low ball here. And I said, do not put your finger up. And he didn't. Stuck to my advice because then we were in the room.
14:16
or a conversation with the agent, there's no interest. There is no buyer out there. So instead of putting the finger up, we thought that property's worth $125,000, could have put an offer at the auction at $115,000, $100,000 under ask. All of a sudden, we're starting that conversation at $105,000, and they're going, well, that's ridiculous. The reserve on this is $1.2. Well, was there an offer on that race? There was no one participating. The best time, and if they do need to sell, be greedy, be pushy.
14:42
Because you're in the ability, first time buyers can actually take a bit of a stance in the market is this small moment in time. And it might only be for a month, could be three months max. But it's a moment in time where buyers for the first time in a long time have some power in the negotiation. So roll up the sleeve, flex the muscles and really try to get the best deal you can.
15:00
Looking at the latest data, it kind of goes through house price growth by capital city, breaks it down into top 25% medium house price, middle 50%, bottom 25%. But the interesting point on the data across the board was that top end is coming off every capital city.
15:17
Melbourne and Sydney, it's gone backwards. So down 1.5% in the last three months for both capital cities. So that's driving the overall medium house price down. And then the big performers like your Perth, your Brisbane, your Adelaide's, almost half the growth of what some of the lower percentage, the lower medium house prices, I should say, are doing in those areas. Is this an opportunity, do you think, for those higher price range in buying conditions? Or do you think it's going to come off even further in the next couple of months?
15:46
Yeah, at the higher price points, at least, the pond's a lot smaller, right? So there's less buyer activity. The pool is not as big. So that's naturally going to hurt in times of more uncertainty. Strong markets like Brisbane and Perth, there's still enough activity in the economy so strong, particularly in Western Australia, and the supply is so tight. I just don't think we're going to see the same impacts as we're going to see in Melbourne or Sydney at that higher end.
16:15
Just because we're seeing those markets come off, sentiment is so low. And somewhere like Melbourne, where the economy has suffered over the last four or five years, I think the top end of those markets are probably going to hurt a lot more than Brisbane and Perth. There's just so much stability. And there's so little stock. There's no sellers in the market. Perth, for instance, 30% of the stock is selling each week, which...
16:36
regardless of sentiment when demand is so much stronger than supply to that point where there's no market in the world that I've been able to identify where 30% of the total stock available is selling on a weekly basis. That's a critical under supply. So regardless of all this noise that we're seeing, the fundamentals are going to support potentially price growth in all areas of the market, be that entry level, middle or high end, because of that imbalance in supply and demand.
17:05
Demand's interesting because there's some recent migration data that's just come out in the last couple of weeks. Some big figures here as well. So from a net arrivals perspective in January 2026.
17:17
57,270 people. That's a record. That's a record in history. So they wonder why we've got a housing problem and the government want to tax investors, yet 57,000 people arrived in Australia in January 2026 with the intention of staying here long term. And you wonder why we've got a housing crisis.
17:40
and they're not doing anything to bring on any supply race. This is what baffles me. Let's tax investors, yet let's let almost 60,000 people into our country with the intention to stay for 12 months or longer. We don't have a housing crisis, Rhys. We've got a migration crisis. We've got a government that is letting far too many people into the country that they haven't provided accommodation for. I'm completely, you know...
18:00
And we know that migration is really, really important for economy and stability of our economy moving forward, but not if you're providing a supply solution. And this is the problem. So up until January 2026, we let in almost 500,000 people. Is that right? Just under half a million, correct?
18:18
Almost a half a million people into the country in the last 12 months up to January 2026, the highest ever recorded in history. In the tightest supplied market that Australia has seen, with the ability to bring on new stock, never been more difficult under the current building restrictions and the inability to get materials.
18:35
So you look at those fundamentals, Reece, and it's mind-boggling who's running our country and how they're trying to go about it. The big one here as well is temporary visa holders at $2.98 million, which is a record high, just 5% year-on-year growth. And a lot of those temporary visa holders are going to be taking up the rental stock as well.
18:54
So we're going to have less rentals because they're going to try to tax investors, and they're going to bring more people in the country to absorb what available stock is there. And you're going to wonder why the housing crisis is going to get worse before it gets better. Let's go through the Folio Sentiment Index, which I've been pretty excited to talk about today. Those that are listening, I'll talk it through, but there's going to be some visuals up here on some of the graphs. And it's going to be fascinating to do this in a couple of weeks' time once we've got the March data because we've had an...
19:19
additional rate rise over war in Iran, gather some momentum, have the petrol prices, have the negative gearing come out as well. So it's probably going to change even more in the next month. The biggest one out of this one here was looking at investors' biggest concerns. So there's interest rates, prices falling, cash flow, access to finance, or no concerns at all. Interest rate concern in January was 13%.
19:43
Now it's at 30. I guarantee you that'll double even more in the next months. Cash flow has remained steady. Prices falling has slightly dropped down and so has access to finance. The overall thing is within a month, we've already seen, this was pre the additional rate rise and pre the war. We're already seeing there is a bit of a concern now with interest rate rises amongst investors.
20:06
Yeah, it's not surprising because that's all you're reading about in the media and all the news out there is it could be three, four. I read an article the other day, there might be five rate rises this year, which nothing's ever as bad as what it appears and nothing's ever as good as what it appears. So this is a moment in time, Rhys. We've been here before and really quite recently through COVID-19.
20:25
We've also, now with access to so much media at your fingertips and a lot of people probably watching or listening to us on their phones, you'll jump off this podcast and you'll read three or four articles that will take you on completely different tangents. But the reality is if you are buying in markets where demand outweighs supply, this sentiment that we're seeing is a moment in time. And it's great to get that data because it's not surprising because we're seeing what's
20:50
what the people that are listening to this podcast, what they're feeling and their behavior towards property is taking place in the marketplace with home open numbers and offers on properties, which is great for us. And it's like if I could overlay when to buy across our sentiment data, when it's at peak confidence, I'm out of the market. The moment confidence is at absolute all time low, as an investor, I'm buying into the market.
21:12
which is counterintuitive to what most, 99% of the population will do. This investor index that we have, this is off the back of the investment report. For those that are listening, they sign up to it, answer five questions, all they gotta do, they get access to the report. We've had over a thousand people register for this now, so it's a big pool of people that we're reaching out to. What we did break it down as well was
21:32
If they're a first-time investor, they had one in their portfolio or they had multiple. So that way you can get an understanding of what type of client is registering in the report, what the sentiment is for a first-time investor versus a more experienced landlord. Now the next graph I've got is a breakdown of what I just mentioned there in terms of the concerns, cash flow, prices falling, interest rates, access to finance, no concerns. The reason I brought this one to your attention was it kind of backs up what you were saying earlier about the market conditions.
22:01
Those first-time investors or people with one property, their biggest concerns are prices falling and interest rates. Two properties plus, their biggest concern clearly is access to finance. So there's no concerns around the rates or prices falling. I think they're seeing that as more of an opportunity. It's purely how do I keep going? Access to finance.
22:20
Exactly. And it's probably those that have invested, done well at a property, probably slightly more astute, more educated because they've been investing for longer, see the opportunity of taking advantage of this moment in time versus the first-time investor that's like headline media, headline media, headline media, I'm just going to go with the droves. It's almost like a tide up and down with the waves. And it's no surprise in that data because you've got to...
22:44
an educated, potentially more seasoned investor seeing this moment in time as an opportunity. Where have you got the rest of the marketplace for people who don't have access to property seeing the opposite that this is a really bad time because confidence is down and sentiment's low. We also tracked via what state they were in as well. So on that same graph, I won't get your commentary on it, but just for those listening, cash flow, New South Wales and Victoria, biggest concerns, obviously their markets that are a little bit tighter from an affordability standpoint.
23:11
WA was access to finance, really. So there wasn't too much of a concern in terms of cash flow for people in Perth. The next one I wanna talk about though is, and this again is very similar to what we've been talking about earlier, and I'll be interested to see what this looks like next month, is is it a good time to buy in terms of this current market conditions? So those that are first time investors are still pretty positive, 48%.
23:37
One property on the fence, 50-50. Two properties are very confident and there's a huge gap there as well. So it's really shown those seasoned investors aren't getting too spooked out of what we're hearing in the media at the moment. Because they've likely seen more than one cycle. When I say that, if you've owned two properties, you've probably either purchased before or during that COVID period. So you've been here before. You've been in times of uncertainty.
24:02
and pulled the trigger on a purchase. Where those that haven't, I can understand your fears because you don't know what you don't know. And if you haven't been through times of uncertainty, it's really hard. I get it mentally. Hardest thing you can do is to go against the grain of society.
24:18
It's, you know, history is very uncommon, unprecedented, you could say, Rhys. But that's why the seasoned investor who has done it and it's worked well for them have sort of got that, what do you call it? Confidence?
24:40
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25:02
Yeah, they've got the confidence to be able to do it again. Well, I mean, then that's the last graph. It actually breaks it down from a confidence score factor, which is a scoring metric that we've created at Folio. And New South Wales, being a very experienced investor state with the amount of growth they've had, and we know a lot of the clients we help from over in Sydney as well, they're very used to investing outside their backyard. They by far had the highest confidence in investing and buying in this market at the
25:27
That's our first take at the... I reckon what was Melbourne, Melbourne would have been the lowest. Anyone that had property in Melbourne? Yep, Melbourne's lowest. Yep, and that's no surprise, right? If you're in a market and hasn't done much, it's very hard to look outside the box. And that was echoed in our podcast that went out on Tuesday, Reece, was the Melbourne update just echoing the sentiment on the ground.
25:47
So big couple of weeks, I guess, across the property industry and Australia's economy as a whole. Be interested to track this data moving into- It's a topical time. We've got heaps happening. You've got your May budget. You've got GST reform. GST reform. You've got capital gains reform. You've got negative gearing. You've got mass migration still coming into the country. You've got One Nation doing their thing. There's a lot happening, Rhys. There's a lot happening. Guys-
26:13
Send in your comments. Send us any, if you disagree with anything Lachlan's saying, if you've got any feedback in the market yourself that maybe looks a little bit different to what we're saying in terms of some of the on the ground. And what are you feeling? The sentiment data, if you haven't filled out a survey, what are you feeling? How do you see the market? Do you think it's time to be bullish or you think...
26:32
you know, what I'm saying is incorrect. I'd love to hear from you. Absolutely. Yeah, that's a big point, actually. This sentiment index that is from our investment report, we've had over 1,000 people register, which is amazing. Yeah, thank you, guys. But we get a lot more than 1,000 people listening to this episode. So those that want to have access to it, make sure you click in the link on YouTube or Spotify to register for the report. We do ask five questions, which is the sentiment index that we've just been talking about. We'll never ask that again of you. It's purely to track them on a month-by-month basis.
27:00
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