The "Boring" Property Investing Strategy That Builds Wealth in Every Cycle

Every year, the headlines scream the same thing: “Crash coming”, “Hotspot revealed”, “Wait or buy?”... but the investors quietly building real wealth aren’t listening to the noise.

In this episode, we’re breaking down what successful property investors in Australia are actually doing in 2026 - and more importantly, what they’re NOT doing.

If you’ve been waiting for the “perfect time” or you’re stuck consuming endless property content without taking action, this conversation will challenge how you think about investing.

Tune in to discover

✅What’s actually changed in the 2026 property market
✅How smart investors prepare BEFORE buying (not after)
✅The truth about borrowing capacity, lending changes, and rate rises
✅What really causes most investors to fail
✅How to build a 10-year property portfolio strategy
✅Why having the right team (broker, buyer’s agent, accountant) is critical

Key moments:

00:00:00 Intro
00:01:00 Discipline Over Prediction
00:02:00 Lending Changes in 2026
00:03:00 Supply and Demand Fundamentals
00:04:20 What Disciplined Investors Know
00:06:00 Getting Fully Assessed Approvals
00:07:20 Strategic Planning
00:08:40 What Successful Investors Avoid
00:10:00 Stop Waiting for a Crash
00:11:20 Why DIY Research Backfires
00:12:00 The 2036 Wealth Blueprint
00:13:20 Boring Consistency Wins

Hit play now - your future portfolio will thank you.

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👉Get In Touch With ALIC

https://www.ripehouseadvisory.com.au/lp/24/8/investment-lending-sign-up

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👉Access our “Top-Performing Suburbs” report to see the highest growth suburbs right now:

https://www.ripehouseadvisory.com.au/lp/25/09/pd/top-performing-suburbs-report-2025

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✅About Mark From ALIC✅

Ranked as Australia’s leading residential broker for the past seven years, Mark Davis is a director and investment lending manager at ALIC.

Winning 23 times broker of the year and $4.5 billion+under management - he co-founded the company in 2009 and has forged it into one of Australia’s most respected brokerages.

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✅About Ripehouse Advisory✅

Through their innovative ‘done for you’ property investment system, Ripehouse Advisory simplifies the investment process - enabling investors to build a property portfolio that generates substantial returns.

With a focus on long-term relationships, personalised strategies, and thorough research, Ripehouse Advisory empowers investors to create a financial legacy that can be passed on to future generations.

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✅Contact Ripehouse Advisory✅

https://www.ripehouseadvisory.com.au/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Don't get sucked into negative news cycles. There's news and there's the real news. You've been doing this for a long time, work with a lot of clients. What do disciplined investors know in 2026? If you're waking up one day and thinking about buying property tomorrow, like you're really not operating with a plan. You're just operating off a gut feel, and you're gonna be that type of person where a month or two later you're thinking about panic selling.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

You're gonna make mistakes, you're not buying correctly, you're gonna overpay, you're not gonna do your research, you're gonna buy in the wrong market, you're not gonna have the right professional there. And let's face it, we all aren't experts at buying property. I've been doing this since 21, so I've been doing it for 34 years. So 34 years is a long process. I've only bought 40 houses in that time. It's not we go in there and buy 10 tomorrow. It's not we try and borrow as much money as we can. It's about being planned, being strategic, getting debt down, non-deductible debt down.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

The biggest risk most investors face isn't a 25 basis point increase. It's every year there's a new prediction. Crash coming, boom coming, hotspot here, hotspot there, and yet the investors who quietly build real wealth aren't the loudest. They're the most disciplined. 2026 isn't dramatic, it's not euphoric, lending's tighter, sentiments mixed, media's confused again. So today we're not talking about suburbs, we're talking about behaviour. And as always, I'm joined by Mark Davis, Director and Principal of the Australian Lending and Investment Centre, multiple-time broker of the year, over$4.5 billion under loan management, and more importantly, someone who's built and managed portfolios through multiple lending cycles. Today, we're breaking down what successful investors are actually doing in 2026. So, Mart, it's 2026. What's actually changed this year so far? Obviously, we're only into uh as the time of this recording, we're at the end of February, but what's changed so far on your end?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Well, first of all, thanks for having me here today, Julian. Uh, what's changed? There's a few limits in regard to what borrowing limits we can go to. So the the regulators are trying to kind of stop people over borrowing, which I don't have any concerns with, because if you're over borrowing what you should be borrowing, you probably shouldn't be doing it. So I've I've got no comms with that. I believe in staying within the guidelines and um creating wealth through lending structures and building, not building Rome overnight, but but doing it in a slow, progressive state. So I don't I don't have concerns with that. Other changes is obviously the rate change the other day, and there's talk of more. Yep. Uh and obviously there's obviously changes on the horizon in regard to uh uh tax you may pay on investments and those types of things. But that's that's really the main changes from my perspective from the lending firm.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

I think from the property side of things, to be honest with you, I could probably go the inverse. Nothing's really actually changed in terms of supply is really tight, rental markets really tight, demand is extremely tight on the buying side, so many offers to compete with out there when buying property for clients. So the fundamentals realistically of supply and demand are still extremely strong, and that's not going anywhere with where it sits at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

But uh, I guess just on that borrow borrowing, we're lending out more money than we've ever done, okay, at the moment in this market. Okay, so it's a great opportunity market. People aren't using enough of their income to run investments, it's quite low. The percentage when you do the calculations, we've got tools that actually show you those percentages. So it's really proven to us of late that uh very, very few people allocate enough money to run their portfolio. So, and on top of that, it's um there's great markets to buy in at the moment nationally. It's it's a it's quite a good time, so much so that ALIC, our company, will be up 45% on lending volumes this year in 26 from 25, which is something we've never achieved previously.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

That's a huge uplift there. So it's 45% offer of a very established book. So I guess for anybody listening, that's that shows you kind of what the herd is doing, right? They're they're all still going in. Don't get sucked into negative news cycles. There's there's news and there's the real news of what's actually happening, and uh people are piling in. So for your side, you've you've been doing this for a long time. Yeah, work with a lot of clients, a lot of clients over a long period of time. And uh for us, we've got lots of clients who have been repeating with us through the years as well. What do disciplined investors know in 2026? What are they doing? I touch on this all the time.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

The disciplined ones know all their numbers, they know their net worth, they know their borrowing capacity, they know their cash flows, they know their buffers, they know their markets, they've got the team around them, they've got the right wealth team around them, but all heading in the same direction at the same time. That's what the disciplined people are doing, and that's why they're buying, because the markets, that there are markets out there, not that I'm a property advisor, that Ripehouse and other buyers' advocates are advising, are great markets to buy in. So, in my eyes, that's what all the disciplined people out there are doing, and we're educating all our customers to be in that same state.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Yeah, I think when the numbers stack up, the disciplined investors are just buying. They're not waiting to just be, oh, the news sentiment is better now, or consumer confidence is up or inflation's going one way or the other. They're just they are doing actions. Actions speak louder than words in everything.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Well, they're not concerned about that 0.25 uh jeweling that I mentioned the other day on a 500k uh loan, it's only$687 a year on the highest tax bracket. So they're definitely not worried about that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And uh they're very open to that's part of it, it's all part of the calculation, and it all comes up in the sums as to whether you should go or don't go, and the majority of astute investor clients are definitely going right now.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Yeah. Now I touched on there in terms of taking action because I think for me, when I think of a uh what a successful client looks like, they're just people who take action. They don't have a certain profile, a certain income, certain industry that they work in. It's just action that they take. But uh, I guess from your side of things, Mark, what do what are that what are those actions? What do they actually look like?

SPEAKER_01 6:06

So the actions they're actually doing at the moment, they're actually ready at all times. So they have the approval set up. So I only deal with banks that don't actually do a full assessment. I want to touch on that one as well because a lot of people out there, and I just saw Westpac advertising last night, they advertise like an approval immediately. And I sat there and spoke to someone who was next to me and said, it's not a proper approval, they actually don't assess the loan. It's a computer generated one with asteriskes saying that we don't fully assess your loan and we'll do that later date. So what they're doing is actually effectively sending you to auction without having an approval. I call that a Clayton's approval.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

So it's a conditional, conditional approval. It's already conditional to begin with, but it's another condition.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

It's not worth the paper, it's written on. Okay. And yet the big banks are advertising that because they don't have the time or money. Well, you think they don't have the money, but they don't think they've got the money to actually assess all these loans that don't get completed. So one thing on that is our customers are getting fully assessed, not basic computer generated approvals that aren't approvals, Julian. Yeah. Fully assessed approvals so they're ready to go. They know what their record is, they've done their valuations, they've got their experts around them. They are strategically planning. And you don't wake up today and go and get a loan for tomorrow. And this is why I used to have a time period to get into my diary, it'd be seven or fourteen days, because you don't come to me on Friday in the morning to buy on Saturday. You come to me three months before strategically planning your next steps. Yeah. Yeah. So they're all ready to go, plan, strategic, right people around them and uh set up from the bank side.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Yeah. Now I think it's fairly similar. Obviously, the lending side of things different from our side, but they're they're the clients having reviews, whether it's their current portfolio, what the next step looks like. If you're waking up one day and thinking about buying property tomorrow, like you're really not operating with a plan, you're just operating off a gut feel, and um you're gonna be that type of person where a month or two later you're thinking about panic selling because you're gonna be able to get it. Well, you're gonna make mistakes. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Yeah, you're gonna make mistakes, you're gonna buy incorrectly, you're gonna overpay, you're not gonna do your research, you're gonna buy in the wrong market, you're not gonna have the right professional there. And let's face it, um, we all aren't experts at buying property. Okay. I'm a big believer, I pay for everyone around me who are better than me, which is in most things, uh, Julian, hopefully uh apart from lending, uh, to do everything for me because I don't want to spend the time. I just need to know that they're good enough to do it, which is why in 90% of cases I have professionals around every one of my clients fill in the gaps that they can't fill themselves.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Yeah, which leads me to my next question, one of my favorite uh favorite things I like to go into. What are successful investors not doing in 2026? What are they doing from not doing from your end? And I'll give my site, which might agitate a few people listening. I hope not, because I'd hope the people that are listening are successful investors, but uh what are they not doing on your side? If you're serious about building wealth through property, you don't just need a loan, you need a strategy. And that's exactly what the Australian Lending and Investment Centre delivers. Australia's most awarded brokerage. They're not just looking at what you can borrow, they'll build you a holistic lending plan tailored to your long-term goals. We use them, we trust them, and so do our clients. So to find out more or to book your complimentary lending strategy session, head to the link in the show notes to connect with the team. Thanks for listening. Now back to the video.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

They're not chasing yield. Yep. Yeah. They're not concerned about the latest rate hike. They're not concerned about small things. Look at the bigger picture. So they're not concerned about the small fry. Yeah. They're concerned about the bigger picture, the over. So the successful investor is looking for a result over here, and then and and they'll work out how to get there. They're not worried about the the small talk. They're worried about the bigger thing and does it fit their strategy. So they're not doing that, and they're definitely not reacting to market potential market changes like rate increases or capital gains tax changes and those types of things. Yeah, it's very assessed and very deliberate to their end goal.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Yeah. I guess from from my side of things, what they're not doing is, and I don't know if you're listening and this agitates you, please leave me a comment. You can hit me up on LinkedIn more than willing to debate you as well. They're not waiting for a mythical crash off some, you know, rubbish 18-year property cycle. Like those those things are not going to happen for you. Uh, that's number one. Probably number two as well is they're not trying to time 12-month movements. Property is not, it's not day trading, right? We're making informed decisions. Uh, we're not, you know, swing trading on crypto or currency. It is informed strategic decisions. And the other one, too, is the most successful clients that I work with, probably the it's funny enough, the most successful clients are the ones that follow good advice. The ones that always tend to do it the hardest, typically tend to be there's probably one type where it's it's particularly the engineers. I feel the engineers probably struggle with the most because they're very, very learned and structured people. And what they tend to do is they will do some AI research or quick Google research. And that is you, you're you know enough to be dangerous to yourself more often than not. Even us, us experts, when I read through data, I know what is lagging data, I know what is real, what is actually happening on the ground because I deal with agents on a daily basis, and it's not uncommon where sometimes I'll I'll have those conversations with those type of clients where it's like, okay, so I could come in and shadow you for a day in your your work office and I could mimic or copy what you do just based off the actions that I've seen. But it doesn't mean that I'm going to pry into your knowledge of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of property transactions and dealing in the real every day. So I guess the things that they're not doing is they're not trying to DIY and do everything themselves and make themselves an expert in their spare one or two hours a day that they have outside of their nine to five. So, Mark, what separates investors who will look smart in 2036? So we're talking 10 years down the track or more. Good point.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

That's definitely uh Julian, the ones who aren't trying to get rich quick. Yeah. Okay, it's a process, it's a strategy. I've been doing this since 21. So I've been doing it for 34 years. So 34 years is a long process. I've only bought 40 houses in that time. It's not we go in there and buy 10 tomorrow. It's not we try and borrow as much money as we can. It's about getting, it's about being planned, being strategic, getting debt down, non-deductible debt down. Okay, I'm a big believer of P and I payments, Julian, because as that property's growing and the assets debts and the debt's going down, you're getting this creation. Yeah. Yeah, this gap. And that gap creates, with a small pay increase, creates more opportunities. We might then involve multiple institutions. So it's very planned, very strategic. It's non-deductible debt reduction, it's deductible debt increasing. Yeah. And it's utilizing a certain percentage of your income to run investments and knowing your budgets to know how much you do allocate there. That's what the 2036 investor has done. I believe that's what the most successful 2036 investors will have done in the next 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Yeah, and I guess to kind of back that up on your side, and I love referencing sport, being a big sport nuffy, but boring consistency always wins, right? It's the people that are just constantly doing the right thing time and time over again. You know, you look at some of your sporting greats, and let's just use, you know, you could look at your Tom Brady's, your LeBron James here in Australia, it's your Scott Pendlebury's. These are the guys, they're not all flashy, right? They're they're super diligent, they're doing the dailies and doing the same, they're practicing the same play time and time again, but they're doing it better than most and more consistently. Consistency wins in all aspects, whether it's business, whether it's sport, whether it's property investing. The person in 2026, they're going to be the most successful in 2036 when they've been boring and consistent along the way. And what have all those people got around them, Julian? They've all got a team and a coach and a mentor, they've all got teammates.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Those ones have got a great team.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Okay, a great team. So choose your team wisely, get the right team, get a wealth team, and if you're all on the same page, heading in the same direction, your accountant, your financial planner, your estate planner, your banker, your buyer's advocate, your solicitor, and you're all wealth-oriented, heading in the same direction, most of your work is done.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Mark, it's been a pleasure as always. Love you. Thank you for squeezing us in for today. If there's one takeaway from today, it is this. Successful investing isn't about predicting perfectly, it's about behaving properly. Lending conditions change, rates move, media cycles come and go, but the fundamentals of discipline investing don't. The biggest risk most investors face isn't a 25 basis point increase. It's drifting for another two or three years without a structured plan. If you're serious about building wealth through property and you want someone to sanity check your borrowing capacity, your structure, or your next move, you can book a call with either myself or Mark via the links in the show notes. We'll tell you directly whether what you're doing makes sense or whether you're just consuming property content and calling it progress and not taking action. As always, thanks for listening and we'll catch you on the next episode. Bye for now.