Property investment in 2026: five things investors are weighing up

The start of a new tax year is when most investors sit down to revisit strategy. Across our client base, five questions are dominating those conversations.

1. "Is my portfolio still under-borrowed?"

A surprising number of investors who bought during the 2020–2022 window are now sitting on substantial equity they're not using. Property values rose ~30% in many markets while the loan stayed flat. That equity is leverage you've already earned — but if you don't rebalance, it sits idle.

The exercise we run: pull current valuations, current loan balances, and see what's deployable. Many investors find they could fund their next deposit without touching cash.

2. "Should I fix some of the portfolio?"

With the cash rate likely to stay above 3.5% through 2026, fixed rates have come back into the conversation. The decision isn't fixed-vs-variable across the whole portfolio; it's whether to split-fix a portion to lock in cashflow certainty while keeping flexibility on the rest.

Our rule: never fix more than you need, and never for longer than your investment horizon.

3. "Where to next — same market or new market?"

Investors who built their first one or two properties in their home city are now looking interstate. The pull is yield. The risk is local knowledge. The middle path most people land on: stay in known markets for the first three properties, expand to one new state for properties four and five.

4. "Is the SMSF route worth the complexity?"

SMSF lending is more accessible than it was three years ago — a handful of lenders are pricing competitively again. But the rules are intricate (limited recourse borrowing, single asset rule, in-house asset restrictions), and the compliance cost is real.

SMSF makes sense when your super balance is $250k+ and you're planning to hold the asset to retirement. Below that, the costs eat the benefit.

5. "What if rates rise again?"

The cash rate moved up in February. Most of our clients are stress-testing portfolios at +1% from the current rate. Properties that don't comfortably cover at that level are being reviewed — fix the loan, refinance to a sharper rate, or in extreme cases, sell.

The pattern across all five

The investors who do well in 2026 won't be the ones who timed the cycle. They'll be the ones who reviewed their position quarterly and acted on what the numbers told them — not what the headlines did.