I find it rather funny that grown up people are still 'debating' if network marketing is a pyramid scheem or if it is a scam, or if it is a business.

There is a simple rule you can use and it goes like this.

Does the company SELL products or services?
EVEN IF THEY KEEP REPEATING AT NAUSEAM THIS IS NOT SELLING?
Then it is not a pyramide scheem. Pyramid scheems are like the chain letters and are a system to extract payments for no reason then recieving a bigger payment promise at the end. They are illegal.

Do they tell you it is all about signing up, recruitign, never mind the product, sign up sign up?
Then it is network marketing and the trainer is an idiot.

Now reflect for a moment. We have just worked out in a few seconds that all this ventures are NETWORK MARKETING.
What does MARKETING mean?
Answer:
SELLING
SELLING
SELLING
 and in case you did not note it, it is about selling.

So if you are good at selling, if you love selling, if you feel good about selling, take a career in selling. You can do worst than network marketing providing you are rational and realise you sing up for sales and will sign up others for sales.

If you lie about it, dont' waste your time, you will not go past kindergarden stage, where you all clap in unison to feel good about yourself.

Now think about the product. Is it badly overpriced but they tell you it does not matter because it is not about sales anyway?
Run away.

Are there alternative products on shop shelvs for half the price?
Run away.

If the product is unique (really not only in their own imagination)
In a market that is growing, and you love passionately dedicating years to make a vaste clientele.
Well it may even be Ok for you.

otherwise.
Run away.

Fast.

I love reading older post and watch the white-marble-tower replies of some who apparently own a cristal ball and let us, (poor sods) in on some quick reading from it… from time to time.

I bought two blocks of 8 flats in a mining town got it rented for 2 years at twice the cost of keeping them and paying 100% mortgage, and sold them more than doubling the money paid.
Thre is money to be made and there is money to be lost, there is the right timing to get in and the right timing to get out. That in essence is the skill of the entrepreneur in any area not only RE.

The holier-than-you replies, particularly those who profetise doom and gloom are not helpful really, and should stick to a different religion. I am told that Global Warming religion is asking for accolites. May be worth a try there. Plenty of fake doom a gloom to be fanfared around there.

My opinion only of course, not to be taken too seriously

The change from net rental property losses to net investment losses to be added back on to taxable income particularly for self funded retirees who claim the Seniors Health Card is an ideological change in order to "get " those "filthy rich" (clearly not working families) who earn around $80,000 combined income.
Labour ideology is to support those who are hopeless and punish those who are successful, always has and always will be. I call it the Robin Hood party.
Just like everything the Labour party does, it is ineffective and only for show and to please the crowd who cheers.

Net investment losses refers only to income and not capital losses, therefore only someone who borrowed money from the bank to buy shares and who is in negative territory and holds on to the shares and wants to wear the loss for a while hoping for a recovery  need to declare such loss. If you bought shares at 10 and sold them at 5, you have incurred in a capital loss and can only offset it against a capital gain. Capital gain is income, has always been income, has very generous discounts and is part of our tax law. I don't like it either yet has nothing to do with the social security act. 
Super contributions should be completely tax free, that 15% you are paying to put money in is robbery plain and simple.
As for Salary Sacrificing into super, since one is using pre-tax dollars to put away into savings (minus 15% damn it), this is clearly a voluntary action aimed at better one's financial position in the future. To do so and claim to be poor at the same time is rather hypocritical and the SSact should have been amended a long time ago.
As for money can not be accessed before 65, that is of course also wrong since it is at age 55 that you can acces your money.

When it comes to have a wing, I am the first to do so with gusto, however I suggest that winging should be aimed at proper targets, not at random.
Clearly venting anger against Centrelink is a waste of air since Centrelink is an agency that delivers the government legislation just like the ATO.
The first thing to do is not voting Labour to begin with. Next is to dig into the government MP at any given occasion on issues like the ETS and call it for what it is TREASON. Demand that governments stop wasting our dollars on propaganda about "global warming". Demand that if there is to be an incentive that it is given to those business who will spend and employ people in Australia. I am sure we all know what should be done, what is wrong and what is right. We just choose the wrong targets and choose to be silent when it demands we cry out at the top of our voices.

PS

Lets see..you have $5k in shares vlaue drops down to half …you had to declare the value in your income estimate? Not really.
Shares value is part of your assets and not your income. You can hve millions in shares yet no income if the company decided to reinvest, and conversely you could have a bunch of devalued shares yet a sustained and growing income from a company that may be suffering from poor image yet has a sound business going.

Income from share dividend is one thing, market value of shares is another entirely different. So no hey presto at all, unless you are being assessed and limited by the amount of your assets and not your income, you can not take more money from "them" at all.

I don't get this obsession of quoting "overvalued" RE market. What is overvalued? Who is this misterious conspirator that overcharges the buyer? Prices are the reflection of demand and unlike Cuba we have a relatively free market. Relative I say because  every man and his dog who owns a dog kennel tries his best in fanning some influence on the market be it by krying poor, krying foul, assuring that the sky is falling as we speek or that prices will double next year.

Prices have been flat for the last 3 years? Not really, prices have gone down for 3 years and are now slowly and patchy on the way up again.
When the current governemt credentials are probably the worst we ever had, no rate increase or halving of the first home buyer's grant will "crash" the market.
There is something much more sinister to keep watch and protest against at the top of your voice, and that is the "emmissions" trading scheem. (I don't know why but the word emmissions invariably reminds me of passing wind)

As far as RE market, I think that the last year has been a golden year for investors and the next one to 2 years will be just as good. The influence of the unemployment figures will pale when compared to the population boom from birth and migration, and Sydney gets most of it.
The specter of the baby boomers retiring and moving all to the Gold Coast has been done to death. Yes there will be a trend but it will not change life as we know it.
We will have to go back to early 90ties to find a time of opportunities like today and it will probably take another 10 or 15 years to repeat itself.
If you don't like the market as it is now, try Dubay. They are selling at 50% discount. Tell me when are you ever to see this again?

PS
Who was that genius that teaches economics in some university who sold his property after the boom 3 years ago and predicted that the proerety would lose 50% of its value in a few years and he would be able to buy a better house with the money he is keeping safely in the bank?
Pure genius!

Economist, economic commentators, financial experts, fiancial writers, general economic bla bla noise makers fall all into one or another category.
They either invest in the market they presume to know and talk about it…or they do not invest and just talk about it.

I made it a rule for myself, not to listen to anyone who's investment protfolio is smaller than 10 times mine and growing, and who can not show a sound track record of a minimum of double the time I have been in the market.

I am having a realy quite time lately figuring out things as they come up day by day, mainly dismissing what I read or hear as  noise because of the origin, and focusing on a few who interestingly enough are very cautious and clearly do not throw any prediction around as fact. What scares me most is when people ask me for my advice.
All I like to say is that  there is only the present.
That is why it is called a present !

As for buying, there was never a better time…providing you can afford the repayments at 5% and at 10%. If not you are taking a considerable risk. Labor governments are notorious for manipulating markets and legislate  with the grace of a drunken elefant in a china shop, so expect everything, including re-election by the massess holding $900 regardless of braking every single promise made to be elected.

Not an easy question to answer. No one knows what to do, and the one that think they know and say so are only seeking reinforcement for their actions in the assent from others.
If you sell now, and the First Home  Grant is not extended past July, and the banks start cutting lending down to 90 or 80% prices will go down further and you sold at the best possible price…that if your property is worth less than $500k
If the fhog is extended and the share market keeps on going up as it has lately, banks may stay put with 95% lending and you may get a better price later in the year or next year.
As for buying 2008 was the best year ever. If you want to buy now, there is plenty on offer but also plenty of competition from new buyers with Robin Hood's money..
And there are a lot of other possible scenarios like wait and see if lower prices will come reading eagerly the newspaper for bad news scanning for words like "crash", "disaster", "depression" etc. And if you are a professor of economy and sold your house last year on the gamble that prices will go south, have as much possible exposure to media and sell your doom and gloom for a price in order to discourage more people out of the market and create if possible an even worst scenario than the one described by our pathetic yet fearless "leaders" with photo opportunity in sleeve-up and tie less somber faced fashion.

However as a general rule I would say that if your work mates in the office say it is time to buy…then you sell. If they say what a disaster must sell…then you buy

Don't ask for RE advise to your accountant, financial "adviser" and don't ask your friends and relatives unless they are investors with at least 10 properties and 10 years of experience. Make that 20 properties and 20 years of experience
As for borrowing get a mortgage broker to look into borrowing choices and repayment capacity, the fact that you borrowed to clear debts tells me you may be close to the limit in your repayments(?)
Remember investing is good but has a risk component. In your case that risk component is the one that you must consider carefully. Underestimating risk is what brings most investors down.

At $99 you could replace them every year/ It is an organised rip off.
Talk to your electrician and tell him how much would he charge to replace batteries and test on all of the properties. I doubt very much he will charge you $500 if properties are within a reasonable distance.

I received a call last week from a person that with very grave voice, like a funeral director, told me he wanted an appointment to help me in my situation.
When I asked who he was and if he was buying or selling he kept on going with his line of "my situation". I don't have much time for bull artists so I told him if he could explain what situation that may be. To what he replied as if he was reading my clinical history from the chart at the bottom of my hospital bed. You have a rental property and the problems created to the world financial market by speculators has brought you to your situation.
Now lets draw a merciful curtain over the un professionalism, mediocrity and poor ethics of this call and lets concentrate on why was this hungry soul using this line to obtain a meeting to sell me some overpriced and useless "advise".
Clearly he had done his homework and found that most people respond to blame placing on others. If you blame the powerful and call them speculators you are on a winner. Let's go to the pub and have a beer over it!  If he then pulls a whole set of world problems as if he knew what he was  talking about and rattles along blaming everything from the price of butter to the last dodo barbaque onto those who have more than you, two cars (imagine the waste you can only drive one right?) more than one property, you can only live in one cave, what do you want two for? Etc…. I am sure you have heard all this before.

The point however and the only I am interested in, is that all the scores of people who blame their inaction on others, particularly speculators and greedy rich, (since we all know that every single person with money has broken the law and buys Mercedes and performs fake surgery) has his poor success rate to blame on his own set of values. Precisely those values that he thinks make him meritory to a medal to honesty. The fact that his values are false, and that proving it is a matter of a few hours of research is irrelevant. Our (his) values are so tightly nit to our character that without help it is very difficult to extricate oneself from the maze that is holding one behind.

So if the market is down the proactive person finds opportunity, the talkative person finds who to blame for the losses. 
If the market is up, the proactive investor sells, the bla bla person find someone to blame for the "un affordability" and "unsustainable" and the "baby boomers that retire and bring it all down" and those who are left behind and will never be able to afford a home" and also "world peace", and why not the fact that the world rotates anticlockwise if you look from the north pole down…etc

Yet…nota bene…for the person with the value ingrained in his soul, "rich is bad, poor is good" this all makes a lot of sense and I am some sort of monster defending the indefensible, supporting the immoral and the corrupt.

So as you can see it all comes down to our choice of values.
Your values either serve you or they do not. If you aspire to being on a crusade against all evil landlords or against private property in general, this are the value to have.
If you on the other hand are or believe to be on a path to success by enterprise in RE or any other for that matter yet still cling onto those values, they will be clearly in your way.

Just my thought.

No need to be irritated, since this is not a criticism. I don't refer to any of the usual values as "good" or "bad", right or wrong, You are wrong I am right kind of thing. I said I was amused, not offended or irritated. Plus this thread has 28 pages. Yours is just one post of many. Plus I read between the lines or like you say "too much" into it.

My observations are that in general people tend to have conflicting values when it comes to money and riches, and those conflicts surface in the expressions they choose to use and not intentionally.

Yet think for a moment, imagine a writer who believes all famous writers are idiots, or a musician who hates the guts of all from Mozart to the Beatles.
Hard to imagine they will succeed.
Yet when it comes to money it appears that it is OK to think wrong of those who have succeeded, and to lable as greed anything that goes over our own comfort zone.
I once conducted an experiment and asked an audience to write on a paper how much they think is "OK" for a person to earn, and how much is "wrong". Interestingly people wrote down about twice as what they earned themselvs, with answers that considered "obscene" to earn 10 times their own salary.
I find this fascinating since it demonstrates that our own set of preconditioned values determines what we are actualy able or rather allow ourselvs to earn.

Not that there is anything wrong with it!