FHB – Perth Apartment

If there are any experienced people here with the time, please criticise my logic! I am a newbie but I've decided to jump in feet first to the market – with the advice I've read on here and peers.

Situation;

First home buyer – Looking to live in for 2011 (Settlement january) – lease from 2012 onwards with the aim of negative gearing. I believe I need to negative gear due to a 120k income that has to pay a horrible amount of tax. Obviously this will not affect me until I start renting, but I have a year to do my research – –  –

From what I've read about deductions when renting;

– Strata fees are deductible (8k pa)
– Rates are deductible (Water; 1k pa and land 1k pa)
– Management fees – XXX pa
– Depreciation

1) Is it more beneficial for me to leave my furniture that I buy (Bed and couch) in the place when I rent it, along with whitegoods to deduct depreciating items?

2) I read that Interest only is the best way to go with an offset account, I have a 5y loan starting at 6.66% variable (Will go up next month). Is this the best strategy? i.e. paying the minimum when I'm living there, then removing as much cash as I can when I rent it out, to increase the interest repayments and therefor have a bigger deduction?

3) The second boom is coming to our region and I'm banking on some tidy capital growth in the coming years. when I leave it to be rented, what is my best option? – Buy another place to live in and repeat the process? Or should I rent somewhere?

I look forward to contributing to future discussion and appreciate your response!!