Just to add on, in comparison to our current Medicare (for people that is) system, the 'Medicare for Pets' system is more fair. With Medicare at the moment, regardless of how often we use the public medical system, we are forced to pay a percentage of our salary as Medicare Levy. Worse still are those who leech the system by not working, hence not paying tax or Medicare Levy, and yet take advantage of the system by going to the doctor every other week.

I haven't seen the doctor in over two years, and yet I've had to pay my Medicare Levy accordingly. At least with 'Medicare for Pets', it's entirely up to the owner to decide. For example, they may take the risk that their pet may be problem-free in its younger years and register for the scheme only when their dog or cat becomes middle-aged at 7 years old. This is not particularly wise of course, but you get the picture.

With pet insurance, most companies wouldn't even insure your pet once its had its 10th birthday. With 'Medicare for Pets', you could register your pet at say, 16 years old when it's dying from renal failure and all the expensive treatment starts. 'Medicare for Pets' does not check for 'pre-existing conditions', in this sense.

The drawback of this is that people could take advantage of this system by intentionally not registering their animals when they're younger, which is unfortunately the time they're likely to cause the most damage when allowed to roam, more likely to fight, get lost and stolen. So to combat this, we could likewise have a lifetime health cover loading once animals are registered past a certain age. This age would differ between species because of their differing life expectancies. The same penalty currently applies for people when they don't get health insurance after they turn 31.

Indeed, in our current situation where 'medicare for pets' doesn't exist, insurance is paramount. Sounds like your dog had exploratory laparotomy and specifically a gastrotomy, and I've done a couple of them. They are risky procedures, and as you have found, very expensive. The last one I did involved removing an orange rubber ball from the stomach of a Rhodesian Ridgeback X. The bill was $1400, quietly subsidised by our clinic.

Furthermore, let's consider also that the 'medicare for pets' levy is ONLY paid by pet owners. This means that if you don't have pets OR if you have pets but don't believe you need it, you need not register. The bad news is that if something happens and you have to see the vet, you pay full price.

When money comes into the picture and people can see they would actually SAVE MONEY or even get 'FREE' treatment for their pets, I'm sure registration automatically becomes a no-brainer. Otherwise for now, the public at large doesn't understand the importance of microchipping and registration.

As a veterinarian, I'd like to see the equivalent of Medicare for animals. There IS pet insurance, however few seem to know about it, and even fewer seem to understand that there is an 'excess' payable in each instance. In effect, this 'excess' causes owners to still have to fork out for procedures and/ or medications if the costs add up to less than about $200-250 per event. This is in addition to the few hundred dollars a year they pay in premiums. The ones that truly benefit from pet insurance probably wouldn't wish to do so either. When owners can actually claim for the cost of procedures amounting to thousands of dollars, their pet is actually already in grave danger.

Yes, you can be thankful for pet insurance when your dog needs an operation and chemotherapy to manage an aggressive bone cancer in its leg, or when your animal needs an MRI of its brain because it has unexplained seizures. But is this the sort of hair-raising experience you really want to have?

The benefits of 'Medicare for animals' are three-fold:

1. Cash-strapped pet owners no longer have to struggle between deciding whether to treat their sick animal and eat cardboard themselves for several months or to euthanase their pet for the sake of ensuring some quality of life for themselves. Clients also need not leave their animal sitting sick for three weeks before bringing it in as an 'emergency', because they fear the cost of the vet bills.

2. Veterinarians no longer have to put up with complaints that vet bills are 'too expensive' or that we 'charge too much'. Veterinarians can finally focus on actually doing their job guilt-free rather than trying to do the job plus quietly subsidise owner's bills at the same time. Believe it or not, some vet clinics out there actually do this.

3. The lead on from the above is that veterinarians can finally charge the government, *ahem* the clients, what is actually due, and maybe only then can veterinarians cease to be underpaid doormats.

And HOW exactly do we do this? A 'Pet Medicare Levy' of course, payable only by registered pet owners. They pay a levy each year, just like a tax, that is scaled according to what species of pet they have and its size. Pet owners who want to 'benefit' from this scheme and pay government-subsidised vet bills would obviously be forced to microchip and register their animals with council and the government database in order to get a card that itself bears a microchip. This microchip contains all details of an owner's current pets and can be updated at any council or government office whenever the owner gets a new pet or a pet becomes deceased or lost.

Any animal, whose details are NOT on this microchip, does not qualify for any benefits under this scheme and pay full price on all vet bills, which would undoubtedly now be stratospherically expensive. Look, if not for bulk billing, our doctor's bills in reality actually do cost a freakin' fortune! All vet clinics will also carry a standard card reader that allows them to access the details on such 'Pet Medicare Cards'.

If pet owners are given a greater incentive to have their pets REGISTERED with an authority, we would finally get the ball rolling. Now, all we can do is talk till we're blue in the face about the importance of microchipping and registration. Yet, I see squillions of pets who have no microchip and are not registered. These animals get lost, get run over by cars, are stolen, spread disease like Parvovirus and cat AIDS, decimate wildlife, or are busy outside making babies with other individuals of their own species, getting into fights or worse, roaming at large and attacking people and their children.

There is still room for improvement when it comes to responsible pet ownership. And if anybody can't even afford the 'Medicare for Pets' levy, then they better think hard about whether they ought to own an animal in the first place.

Haha, I thought it was a never-ending debate that's been around for as long as housing existed.

Anyway, it's going to take a big crash to scare me enough to drop my property. I'd like to suggest that in the event of a bubble, not all property is going to suffer the same loss of value. Some would lose more value, and others will lose less. Boils back down to the principle of buying right.

Or we can look at it as a jittery market that was looking for a reason, ANY reason, to correct. The panic is unnecessary. I'm sure most of us were wise enough to know that the dust from the GFC had yet to settle and yet the market rebounded seemingly overnight.

The road to riches is long and bumpy. All I can say is: Keep your eye on the prize.

Humorous but true.

Agreed. We could perhaps generalise this to the everyday worker also. Working harder in an attempt to get more money is like pushing **** up a hill considering the tax we pay.

On another note, I wish the government would have a 'Medicare for animals' system in place. If I earned $1 for each person who complained about 'expensive' vet services and earned $0.10 for each person who thought vets were millionaires because they charge 'high' fees, I would be a real millionaire indeed.

Tarneit's vacancy rates currently sit at 10.5%. I agree with Luke in being very cautious about buying in Tarneit. At under $350K, I would be looking to buy an older, standalone 2 bedroom unit (that may be in need of some work), and in a well-established North Eastern or Eastern suburb, preferably in the middle ring, no more than about 25 kms from the city, away from a main road, but walking distance to a train station. Here's an example:

http://www.realestate.com.au/property-unit-vic-mitcham-107546370

Asking is $365K, but of course you could offer less, based on how much your research indicates it is worth. Vacancy rates at Mitcham are 1.5% at the moment. Vacancy rates won't mean a lot to you initially when you're living there, but it is the hidden factor that contributes to price growth, even as you are unaware of it.

Hope someone else can answer your question. I'm not a seasoned investor unfortunately. When you say there's a company in Perth forecasting price increases 'here', which state would you be referring to? One of the property magazines I've read seems to suggest that each state is in a different cycle. For example, the magazine recommended to buy in Sydney but avoid Melbourne (which is where my property is). It is a very sweeping statement to call an entire state unfit for investment as we've learnt that there can be micro cycles occurring within each state, each suburb and possibly even between areas in any given suburb.

It's hardly surprising for a tenant to feel unhappy about a raise in rent, and it probably makes renters feel like landlords are out to suck them dry. But this is simply not the case. It's nothing personal. It boils down to an understanding that landlords obviously do not invest in property to lose money. Otherwise we might as well be running a charity. Of course being a landlord comes with it responsibilities towards the tenant, such as keeping the rental home in a good state of repair and to respond promptly to any reasonable requests from the tenant in order to keep them happy.

In the end, if tenants are unhappy with the cost of rent, they are free to move whenever they wish (within the terms of the rental agreement of course). And to me, this is the best part about renting: the freedom to move around at will, and not needing to be responsible for maintenance work, council rates or water service charges regardless of where they live.

Oh wow, dredging this up from the depths of the abyss. Coincidentally I have a book from the library that talks about this issue. Here's an excerpt again from John Lindeman's book, Mastering the Australian Housing Market:

"The issue of affordability has risen many times since then, but in each case the reason that pressure on housing prices eased was a restriction on housing finance, not an easing of demand…During each period, however, rents rose as the supply of finance diminished, leaving investors with the same net result: an average long-term return of about 14 per cent per annum on their investments."

If John is right, this excerpt demonstrates two points:

1. The current dips in house prices or slowing of house price growth at this time have little to do with weakening demand. Previously I argued this heatedly with another member who stated that in today's housing market, demand has slackened and therefore there is no housing shortage. There is a housing shortage. Go out there and sell your house for cheap and you'll see how many first home buyers and investors will rock up. There's plenty of people out there who want to buy a house. However the stricter lending criteria at this time, combined with higher interest rates and the previous increase in house prices have served to delay people from purchasing a house, NOT destroy their dreams of ever wanting to own a house. Of course, there are some people who want to be continually mobile and not want to be tied down to a mortgage. I know of a few such friends. Even if a large number of people suddenly take on this mentality, they will still need somewhere to rent. The demand for housing is NOT reduced.

2. It is simplistic to assume that rental returns have seemingly increased because of a drop in house prices. In reality, nominal rent itself has also increased to compensate for reduced growth in house prices. Otherwise how would we explain the final statement in that excerpt above?

Additionally, consider another excerpt from the same book:

"…the only option for potential first-home buyers is to rent or to buy. The real measure of affordability for first-home buyers is the cost of renting compared with the cost of repayments, not the cost of repayments per se."

The importance of this statement is realising that in today's housing market climate where repayments for a house vastly exceed the rent of a similar house, first-home buyers will choose NOT to buy because it makes much more sense to rent. However as house price growth slows or stagnates, nominal rents will continue to increase. And at some point, the cost of repayments and rent would be quite close, and that causes first-home buyers to stop renting, flood into the market to buy their first home, and house prices grow again. So you see, it really is all a cycle.

What does this mean for potential first-home buyers? Rent. Save for your deposit and wait till repayments start to parallel that of rent of a similar house, then buy. Alternatively if owning the roof over your head is very important to you, buy when you can reasonably afford to do so. What does this mean for investors? Hold on to what you have or clear 'laggard' properties and save in preparation to get into the next cycle. Growth in house prices is slowing or prices could even be falling, however expect rents to increase, until such point that the cycle begins again. Looking at how potential first-home buyers and investors are likely to behave in the current market, it also becomes easier to appreciate why retail is doing so badly. Saving has suddenly become very 'cool', for one reason or another. Unfortunately, such an injurious insult to the retail sector can lead to job losses and rising unemployment, which compounds the issue further.

To conclude, I'll say what many others have said before: the housing market is not simply going to crash or implode without the influence of larger forces from Australia's economy and that of the rest of the world, or the effects of natural disaster or war.

John Lindeman's book is a great read by the way, it makes things very easy to understand.