Interesting point, but as noted above the real test is how much it costs to replace the old house, not what you would get for it if sold as is. The difference from your past cost in the latter is inflation, and the imbalance of demand over supply. More noticeable in dollar terms over a extended period of time.

Mark Weldon was very negative on property investment and use of LAQC's in the paper the other day. Don't see the problem myself. Depreciation is claimed by all businesses. Its just more noticeable for providers of rental property as this is a big part of the cost of provision of accommodation - for obvious reasons.

His beef was with offsets against salary and wages for tax purposes. I guess he wants the wage and salary tax base as extensive as possible so that the government can afford to reduce coy tax rates?? It all boils down to an allocation bun fight and guess who always wins. A fine example of Financial Darwinisiam ; )