Client FAQs Answered: Buying Now, Interstate Investing, Units vs Houses After the Budget

Every capital city is now flat or falling, some markets by more than 1.5 percent in a single month. Lachlan Delahunty just put an offer on a unit complex in Melbourne. This episode explains why those two things are not a contradiction, and works through the questions Follio’s clients are asking most often in the current environment.

Is Now a Good Time to Buy?

The Australian property market is running at five different speeds simultaneously. Buying into a heavily falling market is a mistake even when everyone is citing the “”be greedy when others are fearful”” line. The relevant question is not whether to buy, but where, at what price point, against what criteria, and with what serviceability buffer. A softer market is exactly where a disciplined buyer finds undervalued assets. It is not a signal to buy anything.

Lachlan’s Melbourne unit complex offer is built on a specific set of criteria: sub-$1M price point, below replacement cost, rental demand driven by employment not lifestyle, and a serviceability position that does not require the asset to perform within 24 months. That framework applies regardless of what the national median is doing.

The Real Risk of Investing Interstate

Investing outside your home state carries real costs: travel, local knowledge gaps, property management quality risk, and the difficulty of monitoring an asset you cannot physically inspect. Reece and Lachlan are direct on this: the $50,000 cost of getting interstate investing wrong is regularly dwarfed by the upside of buying in the right market. The risk is real but it is manageable with the right process. The bigger risk is staying in an underperforming market because it is familiar.

Units and Townhouses: Why They Have Become More Compelling Since the Budget

The negative gearing changes on established purchases have shifted the investor incentive toward new construction. But KPMG’s latest forecast predicts units will outperform houses in price growth next year. The combination of replacement cost dynamics, undersupply in inner-ring apartment markets, and the structural shift in investor preference toward new builds is creating a valuation opportunity in established units that has not existed in most markets for several years.

Published: 11 Aug 2026