To the best of my understanding, your home can be rented out and you can rent elsewhere yourself for up to 6 years, selling then does not incur capital gains tax as the home is your principle place of residence

Yes Cindy

as long as you lived in it for a year from the time you bought it 

6 year rule doesn't apply if you rent it before moving in 

Also CGT is prorated if you sell after more than 6 years if still rented 

The principle place of residence is the place you reside in, once you apply for the Negative Gearing rebates the property becomes an investment property and you incur the costs involved. 

My personal experience was, decided to retire to the country and built a house, moved in and rented out the house I owned.  After three years of this I sold the rental and incured a capital gains bill on half the profit made in the sale.

After taking into account the rates, maintenance, management fees and other costs involved, for me it would have been more cost effective and less of a hassle to put the money into a managed fund.

For someone who is trying to ease their way into the market through leveraging finnances it may well be a different story, I think that this is what Brocky is eluding to.

Either way, it is something that needs prudent consideration, there is a lot of information out there that is not quite telling the whole story.

Yes entirely PS it is a form of forced saving for the young . The better alternative of investing in the market requires greater displine. 

ex PS  -  renting is a dicy business and were it not for so far good capital gains then you'd be a mug for owning real estate.

We have both rentals and shares.  

Tenants are generally a total disappointment as very few give a damn, fail to look after what they have been given or return the property in the same state as given. And then they want to landlord to come around and even change a light globe.  You can always tell rental areas by the poor state of the gardens and yards.  Sad but that's what you get.

Shares? That one is painful.  Returns can be ok but this is a mug's game where the big boys get first bite at everthing and load of their junk and over inflated shares onto mums and dads.  Good luck if you had a system.  I wish.

Rentvestors?  A fance word but I understand the shift and how it works.  GenY is a cohort of would be's if they could be's.  Belly aching all the time, spending their money like there is no tomorrow and then blaming everybody other than themselves for not being able to pay a high mortgage. Don't get me started on this generation.  What frightens me most is that when they control the levers of power they may well come after their parents and try to get their hands on mum and dad's lifetime of work.  That is one I truly hope I am wrong on....but listening to Sarah Hanson-Young and onserving this generation on social media I suggest we all have a bit to worry about in the next 20 years.

Having worked in the housing rental area at one time  in my working life there is NO way I would ever be a rentinvestor.

Prefer to buy good quality shares and sit back and get good dividends.

A lot less hassle than the stress of being a landlord.

That is a 2 way street Radish.  Shares can disappear faster than council workers at knock off time and they can have bad management which halves their value overnight. Be careful what you wish for.  We have owned shares for decades and the only asset class we have made real money on is real estate.

Not if you have blue chip shares. 

Important point, if you have to rely on the proceeds of the rents from the house to live, then this is not for you.

So Reagan

If  ona has afew investment properties , for arguments sake say 4 houses bringing you a net income of 2,000 per week,it's not good ?

is that based on your SWAT analysis ?

ROFLMAO

Raphael, depends on, how much you paid for the houses, how much of that amount is leveraged to fund them, what percentage of the time they are actually rented, how much damage you have done to the property by renters, etc, etc.

People think property values always head upwardly, they don't, all it takes is some politician to lable your area flood prone even though the water didn't come within a kilometer of the property and you lose up to 30% of the value.  It can be a good investment, but there are no guarantees at all. 

My advice to anyone is, before you make a decision talk to someone who owns rental properties, not the person trying to sell you one, but someone who has been through the process, it will be time well spent.

And on the share front, something like Hybreds are not exciting, they will not make you wealthy, but are designed to aspire to a "fairly safe"  return of around 6-7%, income generating shares do not have to be high risk.

I am only talking good quality shares not penny dreadfuls.

Radish, you seem like an investor rather than a speculator, I have found that if you stick to the higher the profit, the higher the risk strategy, you can't go too wrong.

Your investment strategy seems to be much like my own.

Probably sound, in theory, but how many people would be self disciplined enough to bank any money saved by renting, my guess would be not many.