When Is the Right Time to Buy? (2026): Why Readiness Beats Timing the Market, for First Home Buyers and Investors
The perfect moment only ever looks obvious in the rear-view mirror. The decision that actually matters is whether you are ready.
- There is no “right time” you can spot in advance. The bottom of the last dip was early 2023, and almost nobody called it while it was happening. By the time a low is obvious, it is already behind you.
- Time in the market has beaten timing it. Australian dwelling values have grown at roughly 6% to 7% a year over the long run, enough to double well-located property every 7 to 10 years, despite booms, busts and flat patches along the way.
- Waiting has a cost. While you wait for a dip that may not come, prices can rise, rent keeps leaving your pocket, and your deposit chases a moving target. Affordability is already at its worst level on record.
- The real question is not when the market is ready. It is when you are. Stable income, a deposit, a cash buffer and a horizon to hold matter far more than any forecast.
- Readiness looks different for a first home buyer and an investor, but for both it is a personal and financial decision, not a market call. This guide breaks down both.
Ask ten people when to buy property and at least nine will tell you to wait for the right time. Wait for rates to settle. Wait for prices to dip. Wait for the election, the budget, the spring selling season, the next forecast. It sounds prudent. It feels safe. And it is the single most expensive piece of advice in Australian property, because the right time they are describing does not exist in any form you can act on.
Here is the uncomfortable truth. The best buying conditions of the last few years were in early 2023, at the bottom of the post-pandemic correction, when prices had fallen and fear was everywhere. Almost no one recognised it at the time. The people who bought then were not market-timers with a crystal ball. They were people who happened to be ready, and acted. Everyone still waiting for a clearer signal watched the recovery take off without them.
At Everstone Finance we are not in the business of forecasting the market, because nobody can do it reliably, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something. What we can do is help you answer the question that actually changes your life: are you ready to buy well, and on what terms. This guide makes the case for readiness over timing, then breaks down what ready really means, from both the first home buyer’s seat and the investor’s.
There is no “right time,” and the long-run data shows it
Over the long term, Australian property has rewarded time in the market far more than timing it. Values have grown at roughly 6% to 7% a year on average, enough to double well-located property every 7 to 10 years, even though the path has run through booms, corrections and flat stretches. Picking the exact low is something almost no one manages, and you only ever confirm it in hindsight.
The numbers are worth sitting with. National dwelling values have more than doubled since 2005. The 30-year average growth rate sits around 6.4% a year, and well-located capital city homes have averaged closer to 7%. That does not mean a straight line up. It means cycles: the pandemic surge of 2020 and 2021 on ultra-low rates, the correction through 2022 and into 2023 as the Reserve Bank lifted rates and prices fell back somewhere around 7% to 10%, then a recovery that ran harder and sooner than most expected, on strong population growth and a chronic shortage of new housing.
Through 2025 and into 2026 that supply-constrained recovery carried prices to fresh record highs before momentum cooled again, with national prices easing slightly from early 2026 as higher rates trimmed borrowing capacity. Read that whole arc and one thing jumps out. Every one of those turning points was obvious afterwards and invisible at the time. The buyers who did well were not the ones who guessed the corners. They were the ones who owned property through them.
Why timing the market almost always fails
Timing sounds clever. In practice it loses, for reasons that have nothing to do with how smart you are.
- You cannot see the bottom until it is gone. A market low is only confirmed once prices have already started rising again. By the time the data says “that was it,” the discount is gone and competition is back.
- Waiting is not free. Every year you sit out, you are likely paying rent, and you are exposed to prices that have historically risen more often than they have fallen. The dip you are waiting for has to be big enough to beat all of that, and then you have to actually pull the trigger when everyone around you is fearful.
- Your deposit chases a moving target. If prices rise faster than you save, a bigger deposit buys you less, not more. With affordability at record-worst levels and deposit timelines stretching, the goalposts move while you wait.
- The transaction costs reward holding, not hopping. Stamp duty, legals and agent fees make property a poor thing to dart in and out of. It rewards buying once, for the long term, and getting on with life.
The honest version: trying to time the market means being right twice, when to get out and when to get back in, against your own emotions, with costs stacked against you. Almost no professional does it consistently. It is not a plan, it is a hope.
The real question is not the market. It is you.
The right time to buy is when you are ready: stable income, a deposit and buying costs covered, a cash buffer behind you, and a genuine intention to hold for the medium to long term. When those boxes are ticked, the market’s exact position in its cycle matters far less, because time smooths it out. When they are not, no market dip makes it the right time.
This is the reframe that changes everything. Stop asking the market for permission and start asking yourself a better question. Can I comfortably afford the repayments, including if rates rise. Do I have a buffer if something goes wrong. Am I buying something I am happy to hold for years, not months. Get those right and you have removed most of the risk that timing was supposed to protect you from. Get them wrong and buying at the perfect moment still leaves you exposed.
What “ready” looks like, though, is not identical for everyone. A first home buyer and an investor are solving different problems, so let us take them one at a time.
Readiness for the first home buyer
For a first home buyer, readiness is mostly about stability and staying power, not about outsmarting the market. You are buying a place to live, which means the most important horizon is your own life, not the next forecast.
- Income you can rely on. Not a guarantee of the future, but a reasonable expectation that your earnings are steady enough to carry the repayments through the next few years.
- A deposit, and you do not need 20%. Lenders mortgage insurance, family guarantees and government schemes mean many first home buyers get in with far less. Government programs have quietly helped around 100,000 buyers since 2020. We cover the detail in our guide to the first home buyer grants and schemes by state, so you can see what cuts the deposit hurdle for you.
- A buffer behind the deposit. Ideally a few months of repayments in reserve after you have paid your costs, so a surprise does not become a crisis.
- A horizon you are comfortable with. If you plan to stay put for five years or more, short-term price wobbles barely matter by the time you sell. If you might move in eighteen months, that is a different conversation.
The trap to avoid is the one that catches the most first home buyers: waiting for prices to fall while your deposit falls behind. If you are financially ready, the home you can buy today is a known quantity. The cheaper one you are hoping for next year is a guess, and history says it is usually a losing one.
Readiness for the investor
An investor is solving a different equation. The home you live in is bought with your heart as much as your head. An investment is bought with a spreadsheet and a hold strategy, and readiness is about capacity and cash flow rather than lifestyle.
- Borrowing headroom. Can you add this loan without stretching your whole position thin. Your borrowing capacity, and how a lender assesses your existing commitments, sets the real ceiling.
- A cash-flow buffer per property. Vacancy, repairs and rate rises are not maybes, they are certainties over a long hold. With gross rental yields nationally around 4.69% in early 2026, down from above 5% a year earlier, the gap between rent and costs needs planning for, not hoping over.
- A 7 to 10 year horizon. Property is a long-cycle asset. The compounding that makes it work needs time, which is exactly why time in the market beats trying to trade the dips.
- Fundamentals over forecasts. The investors who did well in 2025, when new investor loans pushed toward decade highs, were not chasing a tipped suburb. They were buying assets that stacked up on supply, demand and cash flow, and holding them.
For an investor, “the right time” is when a deal makes sense on its own numbers and you have the capacity to hold it through a full cycle. The macro headlines are noise next to that. If the fundamentals work and you can carry it comfortably, waiting for a perfect entry usually just means another year of someone else collecting the rent.
The cost of waiting, in real numbers
Put rough figures on it and the waiting game looks very different. Say you are ready to buy a $700,000 home but decide to hold off a year for a “better time.”
- If the market does roughly what it has averaged and rises around 7%, that home is now about $749,000, $49,000 more than today.
- Meanwhile, a year of renting might cost you somewhere around $25,000 that builds no equity of your own.
- For waiting to pay off, prices needed to fall by more than 10%, and you needed to recognise the bottom and act while everyone else was nervous.
Instead, the most likely outcome on the long-run average is that the wait cost you roughly $74,000 and a year of progress. These figures are illustrative, not a forecast, and some years prices do fall. But that is exactly the point. You are betting against the long-run trend and your own ability to time it, to save a discount that history says rarely shows up on cue.
When it actually is smart to wait
None of this means buy at any cost. There is a right time to wait, and it has nothing to do with the market. It is when you are not ready.
Hold off if your income is genuinely unstable, if buying would leave you with no buffer at all, if your deposit and costs are not really covered, or if there is a real chance you will need to sell within a year or two. Those are sound reasons to wait, because they are about your resilience, not your forecasting. Waiting to get yourself ready is wisdom. Waiting for the market to hand you a signal it never sends is not.
Your readiness checklist
Here is the same question, “am I ready,” mapped for both types of buyer. If you can tick most of your column, your timing is probably better than you think.
| Are you ready on... | First home buyer | Investor |
|---|---|---|
| Income | Stable and secure enough to carry repayments for the next few years | Borrowing capacity with headroom across your whole position |
| Deposit | Your tier plus costs covered, schemes can cut the 20% hurdle | Equity or deposit plus buying costs, without overstretching |
| Buffer | A few months of repayments in reserve after costs | A vacancy and rate-rise buffer for each property |
| Horizon | Happy to hold and live in it five years or more | A 7 to 10 year hold to ride a full cycle |
| Mindset | Buying a home, not trying to pick a bottom | Fundamentals and cash flow, not forecasts |
How Everstone helps you know when you are ready
We will never tell you the market is about to do this or that, because we cannot know and neither can anyone else. What we can do is something far more useful: tell you, clearly and honestly, whether you are ready, and on what terms.
That means working out your real borrowing capacity, stress-testing the repayments against higher rates, checking your buffer is genuine, and getting you to a clean pre-approval so you can act with confidence when the right property turns up, not the right headline. If you are not ready yet, we will say so, and map the shortest path to getting there. We are paid by the lender when your loan settles, so that conversation costs you nothing.
The point of a broker here is not prediction, it is readiness. Know your number, know your buffer, hold a pre-approval, and the question of timing mostly answers itself.
Wondering if now is your time?
Let us work out what you can really borrow, stress-test it against higher rates, and tell you plainly whether you are ready to buy well, as a first home buyer or an investor. No forecasts, no pressure, no cost.
Find out if you’re readyTiming and readiness glossary
- Time in the market
- The strategy of buying a quality asset and holding it for the long term, letting growth compound through the cycles, rather than trying to trade the highs and lows.
- Timing the market
- Trying to buy at the low and sell at the high. It requires being right twice, against your own emotions and the transaction costs, and almost no one does it consistently.
- Property cycle
- The recurring pattern of growth, peak, correction and recovery that property markets move through, driven by rates, supply, demand and sentiment.
- Buffer
- Savings held in reserve after your deposit and costs, used to absorb rate rises, repairs or a change in income without forcing a sale.
- Borrowing capacity
- The maximum a lender will lend you based on your income, expenses and existing debts, tested against an interest-rate buffer. It sets your real ceiling, not the headline price.
- Gross rental yield
- Annual rent as a percentage of a property’s value. Nationally around 4.69% in early 2026. A guide to income, before costs, for an investor.
When to buy: FAQ
Is now a good time to buy property in Australia?
For the market as a whole, there is no answer anyone can give you with confidence, because the next move is unknowable. For you specifically, the better question is whether you are ready: stable income, deposit and costs covered, a buffer, and a horizon to hold. If those are in place, time in the market has historically rewarded buying over waiting.
Should I wait for prices or interest rates to fall before I buy?
Usually no, if you are otherwise ready. Waiting exposes you to rising prices and ongoing rent, and the dip you are hoping for has to be large, well-timed and acted on against your own nerves. The bottom of the last cycle in early 2023 was only obvious afterwards. Waiting makes sense when you are not financially ready, not as a way to outguess the market.
Does time in the market really beat timing the market?
Historically, yes. Australian property has averaged roughly 6% to 7% growth a year over the long run, enough to double well-located homes every 7 to 10 years, despite booms and corrections. Holding through the cycles has consistently beaten trying to trade them, which almost no one does reliably.
When is the right time for a first home buyer?
When your income is stable, your deposit and costs are covered, you have a small buffer, and you are happy to hold for around five years or more. You do not need a 20% deposit, schemes and lenders mortgage insurance can get you in sooner. The market’s position matters far less than your own readiness.
When is the right time to buy an investment property?
When a deal stacks up on its own numbers and you have the borrowing capacity and cash-flow buffer to hold it through a full cycle of 7 to 10 years. Investors who do well buy on fundamentals and hold, rather than chasing a tipped suburb or a perfect entry point.
What does it cost me to wait a year?
On the long-run average, a $700,000 home rising around 7% costs roughly $49,000 more in a year, on top of the rent you pay in the meantime. For waiting to win, prices had to fall more than 10% and you had to time the re-entry. It can happen, but you are betting against the trend and your own timing.
How do I know if I am actually ready to buy?
Check five things: stable income, deposit and costs covered, a cash buffer, a medium to long-term horizon, and repayments you can manage even if rates rise. A broker can confirm your borrowing capacity and get you a pre-approval, which turns “am I ready” into a clear yes or a short to-do list.
Does it cost anything to talk to Everstone about whether to buy?
No. We are paid by the lender when a loan settles, so working out your borrowing capacity, stress-testing your position and telling you honestly whether you are ready costs you nothing and carries no obligation.
Related guides
Sources and useful references
- Global Property Guide, Australia house price history and rental yields, globalpropertyguide.com
- PropTrack, Home Price Index and market insights, proptrack.com.au
- Australian Securities and Investments Commission, MoneySmart on buying property, moneysmart.gov.au