number8,

I looked at transferring to my wife but in WA I can only transfer half of the house to her before we have to pay stamp duty.

My wife couldn’t get a mortgage to cover the full value of the house without me backing her up which then would mean I end up paying LMI on our new place.

Is it worth transferring half to my wife now and then the remaining half later (this would mean i only pay 50% stamp duty). Of course she would still need the ability to “buy me out” at a later date.

I’m a real quandary as to what to do.

As it stands I have approx $200k left on my mortgage, and $100k available on redraw. As I said before I have used the redraw as we’ve gone along as I wanted to keep all my money in the offset to help us pay the existing PPOR (now to become our IP) off faster.

My concern is if we leave the PPOR now and rent out as an investment can I claim the interest on the remaining $200k as a tax deduction? Surely that would be OK as I haven’t maxed out the mortgage by taking out the redraw I’ve accumulated.

Although this situation isn’t ideal it would still work as an investment. If I sell the old PPOR and buy another IP I would have to pay stamp duty again which negate any gains on selling the old PPOR.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Stumurr