Thursday, July 16, 2015

I've been thinking...

...about negative gearing and its effect on the property and rental market.

Apparently, it was a bit of a myth that the Labor experiment with cutting it out caused rents to soar.   Rents did go up in Sydney and Perth, but perhaps for other reasons too.  (I seem to recall the rent increase was the widely cited reason for the reversal at the time.)

But if you are going to revise its use, I wonder if there is a case for it to decrease during the life of an investment.   So that, for example, you can claim all interest as a deduction for the first 2 years, then claim (say) half of it for the next two years, or something like that.  I guess it would encourage investment in properties that are to thought to have potential for quick capital gain, and perhaps for the turning over of properties at regular intervals.   At least when properties are being turned over, they are available for home buyers too.  

Of course, there are probably some unintended consequences to this, but seems to have some benefits, no?

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