For rental properties in Australia landlords can 'negative gear' the losses against other income (salary for example). So a common ploy is to buy a house where

For rental properties in Australia landlords can 'negative gear' the losses against other income (salary for example). So a common ploy is to buy a house where the mortgage payments are greater than the income (rent) and claim a deduction from salary. The argument made for its validity is that property owners are taking a risk by buying property - property can go down in value, however everything is being done by the govt at the moment to keep rent being paid, so the risk isn't real. Not only that by having a large number of people buying rental properties it pushes out first home buyers who are forced to rent. Its effectively a wealth transfer from the young to the old who were lucky enough to be around when house prices were cheaper. Not only that, foreign investors (mainly chinese) are forcing up entry level apartment prices, and extracting rent from them. As well, because a lot of business owners have a mortgage on their house to keep their business going, house prices can't be allowed to drop because it will have a knock on effect, and drag the businesses down with it. The whole system has been propped up by increased immigration creating demand on housing, this has been government policy for some time. Now there are no immigrants and all the tourists are leaving, its just a matter of time.