u/SushiMusashii

Howdy.

My goal this year was to sell my PPOR and move to Brisbane CBD. I wanted to rent in Brisbane CBD and invest in outer Brisbane or Sunshine Coast. Was planning to do this around June/July.

My PPOR is a 1-bedroom apartment that is fully offset - worth about 410k. The growth on this has been very minimal, I purchased for $330k in 2014. Seems like an anchor so I wanted to get rid of it.

I am HENRY - income is about 250k pa and aside from my PPOR I have about 110k in ETF's.

Given my high income, rent-vesting was going to be the perfect strategy to allow me to live the CBD lifestyle I want while keeping money in property and continuing to build wealth.

Now I am not so sure what to do. I still want to move to Brisbane CBD - that is a priority for me. But now it seems considerably more expensive without the IP tax refund (which I was perhaps using mental gymnastics to justify the high rent).

Am I looking at it with a wrong perspective? I don't really see many options now for me to build wealth while living in the CBD.

One option might be to turn my PPOR into an IP - but I am not sure the capital gain is there to justify it - the money is probably better off being used elsewhere. The one benefit I can see is that I have the leverage, so I could invest say 80% of the loan value into the ASX or something.

Or maybe I just sit on cash for a while and offset the rent with the interest earned.

I don't really know. Admittedly, I have not made the best financial decisions of late. I had purchased an IP last month for 1M but with all the talks of policy change, I got cold feet and pulled out of the contract during the cool off period. I wanted to wait and see what the budget would be before making such a big investment decision. One week later the property sold for 70k more and two weeks after that the rug was pulled up for investment properties.

Now I'm left kicking myself wondering what to do.

So, my options as I see it...

1. Sell PPOR. Rent in Brisbane and invest PPOR funds into the ASX.
2. Sell PPOR. Rent in Brisbane and sit on cash for a while.
3. Change PPOR to IP. Move offset funds into ASX.
4. Sell PPOR. Purchase PPOR in Brisbane (not ideal as I don't like the idea of owning an apartment ever again. Brisbane CBD may also be short-term).

Any other options? What do you guys think? I appreciate any advice. I am also considering seeing a financial advisor, but not sure it would be worth the cost for my circumstances.

I'm looking to move to Brisbane for a lifestyle change. I can't afford to buy a house where I want to live (inner-city) and I don't really want to purchase an apartment or townhouse.

Rent is quite high there too, so my plan (before last night) was to rent-vest. The idea being that I keep my capital in property while claiming tax deductions to help offset the rent (which is high as shit - about 35-40k per year).

I had a contract signed early April on a $1mil property, but with all doom and gloom talk of policy change, I got cold feet. I cancelled the contract and decided to wait out until after the budget. Week later the house went for 70k more than I paid for it. The estimated taxable loss on this place would have been about 60k per year.

My income is around ~$250k and I currently own a 1-bedroom apartment that I was planning to sell before moving up.

I don't really know what to do now... is it best to hold onto my property now? I was keen to get rid of it as it's had no growth since I've owned it. It's fully offset, but with 80% split loan ready for investment purposes.

I still want to move to Brisbane, but the ~40k rent is hard to justify without the tax refund.

Is an investment property still worthwhile? I was thinking I could buy in soon, claim the negative gearing for the 1yr grace period, and then after that smash down the loan as soon as possible, so that I could get the property positively geared (say 5-8 years) - after which I could then claim the previous losses. It doesn't seem like that bad of an outcome?

Ideas? Overall goal is to move to Brisbane and have some modest gain/stability with what I already have. I prefer having property to shares - and a house over an apartment/townhouse.

Thanks!