Buy Now, and Win Big In January: How Sophisticated Buyers Lock In 2026 Investment Success

Sophisticated buyers win before the new year even starts. This episode shows exactly how to prepare now so you can buy fast when fresh January stock hits and competition surges. If you want to build wealth, grow your portfolio, and take action now, this episode gives you a blueprint for buying before competition spikes. 

We break down every step: securing pre-approval with a strong mortgage broker, building a clear buying brief, tightening strategy, and lining up a team that helps you act decisively. You’ll learn how to assess suburbs using real data signals—vacancy rates, rental growth, infrastructure pipelines, and days-on-market—and how to select houses that deliver growth, yield, and long-term performance.

We show how ready buyers unlock pre-market and off-market deals, position for vendor motivation, and negotiate like low-friction buyers who agents prioritise. You’ll also hear practical tactics: delayed settlements into January, finance-clause strategy, daily habits that compound results, and how to stay fast without sacrificing standards.

Prices are already moving across Australia. Waiting until January puts you behind. 

Subscribe, share with someone who needs a push, and message us your first action step today.

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Waiting Until January Fails
• 0:53 Finance First, Strategy Next
• 1:40 Competing Now Beats January Crowds
• 2:13 Prep For January Stock Surge
• 3:07 Work Agents And Pre-Approvals
• 3:43 Smart Negotiations And Delayed Settlement
• 4:12 Build Your A-Team And Move Fast
• 5:16 Action Takers Gain The Edge

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

If you want to buy an investment property in 2026, the worst thing that you can do right now is to hold off and take action in January 2026. My name is Casey Taylor. I'm the host of the Taylor Property Wealth Podcast. Today's episode, we are talking about what you need to be doing right now to set yourself up for success to purchase an investment property in 2026. There's a lot of people that are starting to set a goal for I'm going to purchase a property in 2026. And I'm not going to take any action until after the break in January. And that's where a massive amount of investors make the mistake of sitting on the fence until then. Right now, while many people are tired, they're starting to wind down for the year, they're taking their foot off the gas. This is where you need to be getting your finance in place, getting your strategy in place, and making sure that you're in a position ready to go right from the outset of 2026. Because it takes time to get everything in place from the finance, from the strategy piece. But when you're then focusing on the right locations, you're focusing on the quality stock and you're focusing on getting properties under market value. It does take time to find those quality properties. You're not going to get your finance, get your strategy sorted, and find a property tomorrow. Yes, it's possible. However, it's going to take a little bit of time in most cases. But you also want to be getting ready now. So those listings coming through for the remainder of the year, you're actually competing with less people right now than you will be in early 2026. As a sophisticated investor and creating more opportunities for yourself, you need to be taking action and you need to be doing things, completing daily habits that the majority of people are not doing. If you do what the herd are doing, you're not separating yourself from the pack. This is what you need to do to be able to create those additional opportunities. Now, if between now and Christmas you can get your finance sorted, you can get your strategy sorted, what will take place is there's many vendors out there that are now holding off on selling their property until January. So what will happen in January is there'll be more stock coming to market. Now, if you're only just starting to get the ball rolling on it in January once you're back, it might be just a couple of weeks into January and there's stock being released and you're not in a position ready to go. You're chasing your tail, trying to get ready to go. You want your finance in place now, you want your strategy in place now, and you want to be starting to source and leading up into Christmas, taking advantage while the demand's not there, but take advantage of that new stock in quarter one in January 2026. And this is really where you want to work your database, work your relationships with those agents, because you can even start to prep what opportunities are coming through in January. Because the right agency out there might be saying, well, we've got a couple coming through for the remainder of the year, but we've got a number coming through in January. So you can go position yourself with the agent and say, hey, my pre-approval's ready to go. Those vendors might be open to knowing that there's a buyer there ready to go. But it also could be getting really sophisticated with your negotiations with the agent. Understand that vendor's motivation. You might be able to negotiate and get something under contract now, but delay the settlement until next year. The vendor's still getting their outcome, but you've now secured something in late 2025 while there isn't as much competition. So there's a lot of opportunity with being ready late in the year. We still have a lot of investors doing exactly this. They're getting their finance sorted now. They're getting the strategy sorted with us now so that we can take advantage towards the end of the year, but we're ready early into the new year also. This is just super important to be able to set yourself up for that success. If you don't know where to begin, the first step that you want to be doing is talking to a quality mortgage broker. You might be in a position where you've got your owner occupied property, you've been thinking of doing something, but you're not really sure where to start. Get in contact with a good quality mortgage broker. If you don't know where to begin there, reach out to us. We can put you in touch with a quality mortgage broker, make that introduction, get that finance sorted now. Now, once you start to understand what your borrowing capacity is, that is where you can choose your professional of choice with a buyer's agent to be able to go out there and define the strategy. What location are you going to be targeting? What type of asset are you going to be targeting? And really get that strategy in place so you can start to actively source and look for that brief. And yes, like I said, with the quality property under market value in those areas prime for growth, it's going to take a little bit of time. But that's why you want to be setting yourself up now to go early in 2026. As an investor, you want to sell yourself to the vendor, you want to sell yourself to the sales agent. You want to say that you've got your strategy ready to go, you've got your pre-approval ready to go, you know what you're looking to buy. Here's our brief. This is what we're looking for. We're motivated, we're ready to take action and sign a contract today. That helps get deals done. And this is why we get off-market opportunities and exclusive off-markets with the sales agents we work with because they know how we operate. They know that we don't muck around and we're here just to get a deal done, get that process sorted and make it seamless for all parties involved. You also want to get your conveyancer ready, you want to get your pest and building inspector ready. You want those things in place. So once you do get something under contract, you can work through that process. Right now, like I said, is a big, big opportunity to be sourcing, looking for property while heaps of people are saying, nah, fuck it. I'm tired. We'll look at this in the new year. Because heaps of purchases that are doing that just means there's more opportunity out there for you. Set yourself apart from the pack, continue to be sourcing and secure that. And like I said, with those negotiations, you can even delay that settlement into new year. It might even be some of those finance clauses. Typically, you want to get those done in short periods of time, but you might be able to push that settlement out to the new year. The vendor might want to spend the last Christmas in that house, but you've got the deal done now, and it's just a matter of settling in 2026. Or you're ready to go. The agent knows you're there. You've been there from now through to the end of the year, and they've got vendors there ready to sell in the new year, and you're going to be the first people that they come to. This episode, I hope you understand some of the value in taking that action now. Set yourself up for success to be able to continue to build your wealth, build your financial freedom. Action takers uh action takers reap the rewards. And last month, property prices increased substantially. That is going to continue. So the earlier you can get into the market without rushing and lowering your standards, the better. So get your finances in place, get your strategy in place, start to really take action to achieve those goals you want to achieve. Hope this episode has been valuable. If you're thinking, shit, I need to go out there and start to get things in place, but you don't know where to start, reach out. We can have a chat and see if you might be one of the clients that we work with each month to help them on their property journey. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next episode.