Views on negative gearing are poles apart. Negative gearing is like the death penalty. People feel strongly both ways about it, judging by reactions to my last column. In that column, I wrote that negative gearing — which occurs when a landlord makes year-by-year cash losses on a mortgaged property — is becoming more common. This is mainly because rents haven’t risen nearly as fast as house prices.
Q&As: Man who has made $3 million from shares; How much risk for a 53-year-old?; How good is advice from banks?
Negative gearing may come back to haunt you. Many landlords say they don’t mind or even like to be negatively geared — making year-by-year cash losses on a mortgaged investment. But it never looked all that appealing to me. And recently I heard a rather compelling argument against it.
Q&As: 27-year-old overseas doesn’t need more than 4 rentals in NZ; Should more conservative 26-year-old get revolving credit mortgage?
Readers rally to back houses. It always happens. Whenever I write about investing in houses and shares in the same column, people say I’m unfairly negative about houses. In my final column last year, I wrote that the rise in house prices over the previous year was slower than the rise in: New Zealand shares, hedged overseas shares and unhedged overseas shares, all including dividends. That surprised me, and I thought it might surprise you.
Q&As: Should man, 53, go with bank and seminar rental recommendation?; Young couple ponder buying share of family farm; Should Mary answer all readers’ letters?
Can’t see the forest for the houses?Also: Christmas shopping. Quick question: Which of the following grew fastest in the last year: New Zealand house prices, New Zealand shares, hedged overseas shares (hedging removes the effects of foreign exchange movements), or unhedged overseas shares? Surprise, surprise, it wasn’t house prices. Bigger surprise still: house prices came last.
Q&As: $29,000 rental in Gore not the thing for a risk-averse man; More on tax on a second job.
Q&As: Woman in Australian shouldn’t sell her house here; Is the house price boom like the great tulip bulb bubble?; Couple disagree over rental property v shares.
Borrowing is not all bad — it depends why we borrow. Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard has been telling us off because we keep raising our mortgage debt. But, from the individual’s point of view, how bad is that? It depends on why we borrow.