It makes perfect sense in a market like Australia. If you are making 15% appreciation YoY, your mortgage raises are covered and then some by that increase. If

It makes perfect sense in a market like Australia. If you are making 15% appreciation YoY, your mortgage raises are covered and then some by that increase. If you do not have the liquidity to cover those raises, then get out of the market for someone who does. What you are describing is passing all the risk of your investment onto another party to take advantage of the entire profit. We do, in fact, understand ALL of the policy implications here. It seems like you don’t. The housing market should exist to PRIMARILY provide housing. Any effects such as you being able to cover your margin by passing on your increase to a tenant is a secondary benefit and should be curtailed to meet the primary need of the economy. Investments should have risks to make economic sense. In Australia, property owners have mostly been buffered from those risks. Economically, the question needs to be asked as to what value investors provide to the market? The current property investor class is for all intents a purposes a vehicle designed to remove money from the pockets of poor people and put it in the pockets of upper middle class people. Most landlords take bonds to fund improvements to their houses after a fingerprint is found on the wall or the concept of “reasonable wear” is not accounted for, they pass on almost all of the costs, and when a person asks for help with a problem they get ignored indefinitely. You would make similar money in the stock market but you are taking advantage of broken system that enriches people already in the system. Mortgages give access to houses because they are necessary. People now take mortgages and use them as a margin loan to fund speculation and investments. The policy answer is to stop allowing investors to access all of the benefits that have not been designed for them. Fixing the John Howard era middle class welfare rorts would begin to fix the problems.