Devaluation across the board. The proportion of land prices, and building costs. Is out of control. 50 percent reduction locked in for fifty years.

It's an atmosphere of profiteering, which goes against everything au values. It's a dog eat dog atmosphere. Which will only aid the filthy rich at the expense of the majority of Australians.

Ok Steel, so perhaps you explain just how the removal of NG will make houses more affordable?
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Remembering of cause, the less buyers out there the more vervous the banks will become. A hugely important fact to factor in to your equation Steel.

As for your family, if there are on $150K per year each then they can afford their first home in Melbourne. If they're not, then they have to move.

Why damage all home values just to please the seleted few who think owning a home in the highest markets is an entitlement.

Dear Lucifrase,

You wrote;

“The rest of Australia owes your family nothing.”

What pretentious posturing.

Australian millennials (part of your so-called 'rest of Australia') are the second least likely in the countries surveyed to be able to afford their own home.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-07/australian-millennials-rank-low-in-home-ownership:-survey/8424422

Much of the reason why is directly attributable to government policy whether it is NG or CGT or high immigration rates.

You seem to be arguing the rights of Baby Boomers in a very skewed market to investment properties over the very reasonable wishes of millennials to own their own home.

We have two rental properties (down from 4) and my other child has one at 20. These are all positively geared. I have no problems with people investing in property but we shouldn't be highly subsidising them to do so. Why do you think they should? It is them who are saying 'gimme, gimme, gimme” not me.

As to a vacancy tax the Andrew's government here in Victoria is doing just that;
http://www.afr.com/real-estate/victorias-vacant-housing-tax-1-per-cent-seen-as-thin-edge-of-the-wedge-20170307-gus821

But what is 1% per annum against returns of 5-10% per quarter being realised in our local market at the moment?

Negative gearing on housing is the only reason most investors are able to secure loans on properties. If it were any other investment type the banks would laugh them out the door. These same investors are turning up to auctions and outbidding first home buyers and driving house prices up considerably. For you to say that NG does not impact prices reveals you to be in a state of denial bordering on delusion.

Butch has always been deluded. Get rid of unfair competition. NG is the problem, unfair persuasion. The banks agree to finance a house not stating an upper limit, only to get young people into hopeless debt. The first downturn and it all collapses. The bank says that is your problem.

The housing market is full of white ants under the pretext they are the good people.

Doog, the VERY last thing banks want to do is kick people out of their houses. Gee I wish you had a better understanding of the market and what drives it.

Housing affordability is mostly an isolated problem.

The other myth about investors paying $700K for a rental in Sydney is that in order to NG the property, one has to have a short fall.

How on earth does an individual borrow $600,000 plus on a PAYG income? Remembering, they must first service the loan, then claim the tax back.

It's a media beat up.

As always, you ignore the challenge of explaining that it is not supply and demand driving price rises AND price falls.

Explain Perth and Darwin, where house values are much where they were ten years ago. Explain why, even before the intro of a CGT, there were property market falls with NG in place. Any reference calling for the abolition of NG that does not deal with this must be garbage.

Investors don't invest for a CG when they don't see one, NG or no. Where they see one I will only concede that NG can move the market faster towards expectations, but it does not set the market.

Directing immigration, if that is possible, would alleviate the fact that 100000 people a year are trying to gain a foothold in the Sydney bowl alone.

Re the vacancy tax, it would have to apply only to property purposefully quarantined from the rental market, lest it force rents up generally by increasing landlord carrying costs between tenancies.

On CGT more generally, some property markets have not see a gain over a decade, yet CGT will be payable at one's top marginal tax rate from the first dollar should a rise transpire. That is, a real loss is suffered yet tax is paid. Shouldn't CGT only be paid on real gains?
The CGT tax concession superceded the full indexation of the cost base for the assessment of CGT, which should be reinstated if the concession goes.

We've been here before, Steely, there is NO SUBSIDY in NG, only the time-shifting of losses. The tax man gets his full pound of flesh in the end.

There's scope for compromise to limit the nett loss deduction in a financial year, with any remainder carried forward, ultimately to be written down against any future income (or capital gain, which is currently done when determining a capital gain in the year of sale). Many aspire to financial independence from gov't through property ownership, and we should not completely remove the NG enabling more to do this, IMO, benefiting the public purse in the long run.