With the so called rotten negative gearing once again in the spotlight, being blamed for housing un affordability, the truth is the figures are manipulated.

I say this because bar Sydney and to a lesser extent Melbourne, where prices are off the scale, most other cities and regions have affordable housing.

The real problem is the critics are trying to blame the entire nation for isolated issues and that's clearly misleading.

Home ownership is a sacred cow in Australia. Mothers assign their children to strangers 5 days a week to achieve it. Australians need to get over themselves. The 'good' times are gone for ever, thanks largely to their own gimme, gimme greed and sense of entitlement. There is no right to home ownership.

Immigration is the sacred cow that cannot be criticised.

Anything to disguise the downsides of the continually ramped up immigration numbers that descend on the larger capital cities.

Premiers, particularly Labor, have over the years been highly critical of federal governments for those, 'Ridiculous immigration spikes that cause high property prices' and other problems,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/02/15/bob-carr-population_n_9240330.html

You wouldn't mind so much if it was all seriously deficient skills. But bringing in for example mobs of immigrant workers, lesser-skilled, to de-skill and knock down labour costs in aged care delivery is political cynicism from both sides of politics. It prevents our own trained nurses - who by the way have debts to ATO for their education - from getting employment and maintaining their nursing registration.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/nurse-graduates-locked-out-of-workforce-as-migrants-get-jobs-20150606-ghi9c8.html

Amazingly, there are OLO posters who have on previous occasions cited the very obvious displacement of Australian trained nurses from aged care and other general nursing as evidence of attainment of their first priority, the multicultural imperative of diversity in action and diluting the socialist lefts' despised 'White' population and the inherited democratic traditions and freedoms.

Over-population from the increased migrant targets has been used by cynical federal governments from all sides of politics to cover for poor planning, to force down wages and to buy ethnic votes in marginal seats. Regarding the last-mentioned, the socialists who claim to represent workers would have to be the worst in that respect.

Imported NEEDED skills, examples being skilled trade, NOT more IT and government majors and their relatives from the dispora from the Indian subcontinent and Asia generally.

So let's assume we remove negative gearing.

At present, your average 'mum and dad' rental returns around 5% to the owner, while an average 'high end' property (not the Mc-mansion) returns around 3%.

So let's assume those returns go to 8% and 5%, which they would need to for investors to keep investing.

At $400 per week, capatalised at 5%, your mum and dad house is worth about $416,000 and the other at $800 per week is worth $1.4 million. To not increase rents the value of the MD would drop to $260,000 and $832,000.

To allow values to drop by even 20%, rents would have to increase to $510/wk and $1,076/wk.

Now tell me, who can afford that?

Here Here Rehctub,

exactly why people don't understand for every action there is a reaction.

Only the people who don't have negative gearing properties (or shares or businesses) think that stopping NG will solve all the problems.

Rents are cheap (except Sydney and Melbourne)if you penalise the investor you will penalise the tenant (either no more housing being built and/or increase rents)

If you want affordable housing, stop the local councils, state governments from charges huge fees (council rates, application fees, stamp duty, ESL, save the murray levy etc)

It is all the politics of jealousy, the Class War and those who swallow the bait on 'negative' gearing would be even more self-righteously opposed to positive gearing. 'How dare a wealthy landlord make money out of needed shelter', they would shout.

However their preferred socialist 'Progressive' (a misnomer) governments have said quite openly that government:

- will continue to duck-shove its responsibility for public housing onto the private sector;

- is NOT going to supply needed welfare housing, let along low cost, rent-fixed housing for all comers; and

- cannot efficiently manage and nor can government AFFORD, its own public housing.

Governments have said that the management overheads are completely off the scale.

Because the public tenants refuse to care for the properties or even do minor landscaping and fixing. Tenants are notoriously very hard on properties, are demanding and difficult to manage. There is an expanding number of 'professional', litigious tenants and being serviced by the growing number of tenancy lawyers.

If and when Labor get back in the guvvy jets and limos in Canberra, much of the negative gearing talk will dwindle away.