rehctub,

You are right. With their usual 'shock, horror, shame' tripe the tabloids are catering for the dumbed-down peanut gallery's need to for something, anything to get jealous and angry over.

What some of the numerically-challenged greens-left partisans also do not understand is that rental property is like any other business. The ATO would rip the bloody arms off the owner of an investment property who let it for lower than market rent to a relative or acquaintance.

Dear rehctub,

You may find this article by the financial
wizard - Jamie McIntyre of interest:

http://www.australiannationalreview.com/solve-housing-affordability-problem-australia/

Isn't it amazing that many migrants were prepared to move thousands of kilometres to get a better life in Australia. Now we have people whingeing about having to go to the suburbs (maybe 40 kilometres) in order to get into the housing market. What a bunch of wouses we have become. Strangely enough my parents never owned a house (still don't), two of my three children now own their own unit/house. Being brought up without the sense of 'entitlement'has certainly worked in their favour.

Foxy, if someone on say $400K a year misuses say $40,000 that means for someone on $40,000 to miss use $4,000 is in fact also miss using 10% of their income and, considering the person on $400K is actually supporting the one on the $40 K job I guess the lower paid is actually better off given the tax break they received from the higher income earner.

After all, a crime is a crime and to suggest avoiding the GST, as many do is any less a crime is simply not true, especially given the few among us on $400K a year.

It's a twisted way of looking at it I guess.

The truth is anyone in a grand a week bring home can afford a house. Might nit be an $800 grand house, may not even be in Sydney, but hey, house prices and I guess rents have been skyrocketing there for years, it's not a new problem as every boom starts in Sydney.

Dear rehctub,

No it isn't a new problem - but what is new
is the current state of affairs and its growing,
due to a multitude of factors as shown
in the provided links by economic experts.
There's not just one issue involved. Hence the
provision of the links to help towards seeing
and understanding the full picture.

<‘Ridiculous’ immigration fires housing spike: Bob Carr
THE AUSTRALIAN JUNE 12, 2015

Any attempt to address soaring house prices in Sydney and Melbourne should focus on “ridiculously overambitious’’ immigration targets, says former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr.

Immigration was running far ahead of the ability of major cities to absorb new people, straining infrastructure and pushing up the price of dwellings that increasingly are seen as being beyond the reach of average Australians..>

“If you jam more people into Sydney, then they will get spikes in land and housing prices. We are stoking demand,’’ he said.

Federal government figures show Australia planned an immigration intake of 190,000, in 2014-15, about double the number in 2000. The additional humanitarian intake was raised from 12,000 to 20,000 in 2012-13, contributing to a population growth rate of 1.8 per cent that year — among the highest in the developed world and more than three times China’s 0.5 per cent rate.

As developers rush to take ­advantage of booming prices, total housing starts are forecast to hit a 20-year high of 54,680 this financial year, 18 per cent higher than last year, according to the Housing Industry Association.

“I think it is remarkable that people are running around like headless chickens without mentioning the most basic point of all; if you are running one of the highest rates of population growth in the developed world and the business city gets the highest share of that growth ... the result is housing prices going through the roof,’’ Mr Carr said.>