There was a post in the Overseas Deal part of the forum with the title "Is it safe for Australians to buy foreclosed Property in the US?"

In this post the person outline a very interesting point in which he asks the question, why would you want to lose $22,000 compared to making $77,000 a year?

The same principle applies to investment properties, by negatively gearing your investment property, you are actually losing money on the property and betting that the value of that same property goes up in value faster than the rate at which you are losing money on it, in order to make a profit in a few years when you sell it.