try http://law.ato.gov.au/atolaw/view.htm?locid='PAC/19970038/118-145'#118-145

SECTION 118-145 Absences

118-145(1)

If a *dwelling that was your main residence ceases to be your main residence, you may choose to continue to treat it as your main residence.

118-145(2)

If you use the part of the *dwelling that was your main residence for the *purpose of producing assessable income, the maximum period that you can treat it as your main residence under this section while you use it for that purpose is 6 years. You are entitled to another maximum period of 6 years each time the dwelling again becomes and ceases to be your main residence.

118-145(3)

If you do not use the *dwelling for that purpose, you can treat it as your main residence under this section indefinitely.

118-145(4)

If you make the choice, you cannot treat any other *dwelling as your main residence while you apply this section, except if section 118-140 (about changing main residences) applies.
Example:

You live in a house for 3 years. You are posted overseas for 5 years and you rent it out during your absence. On your return you move back into it for 2 years. You are then posted overseas again for 4 years (again renting it out), at the end of which you sell the house.

You have not treated any other dwelling as your main residence during your absences.

You may choose to continue to treat the house as your main residence during both absences because each absence is less than 6 years.

You can make this choice when preparing your income tax return for the income year in which you sold the house.

Terryw
Discover Home Loans
North Sydney
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Yes renting instead of buying to live in can be a good idea. Renting a place can be around 50% cheaper than paying a mortgage on the same place. And then there are the repairs, rates, insruances etc which you do not have to worry about.

But just make sure you do not waste the money you are saving, otherwise you will be worse off in the long run.

Terryw
Discover Home Loans
North Sydney
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Paul hasn’t explained his reasons for wanting to prepay. It could be he has a capital gain this year and he wants to reduce his income to reduce this one off tax. Bringing forward expenses can do this.

Rob, I am not sure of the reasons that prepaying may not work. My accountant explained, but it went over my head.

Terryw
Discover Home Loans
North Sydney
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All the ATO is interested in is establishing a market value for your property. There are various ways you can do this, including getting an agent’s opinion, keeping records of comparable sales etc. Having a valuation will only add to your proof. The valuation being for mortgage purposes only should not matter. It is up to how confident you feel you would be during an audit – if you could justify the price.

I asked if you had a copy as most lenders will not actually give you a copy of the valuation.

Terryw
Discover Home Loans
North Sydney
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Rob, Your couple want $200,000 per year!! I hope they don’t intend to live too long. If they only took $100,000 they could survive for 20 years (less actually due to interest). But there are other No Doc lenders out there too. Off the top of my head Peppers and La Trobe – yes both have high rates and are less than ideal.

But if the couple had other income, then they may not need $100,000, they could take much less to just supplement their incomes.

I beleive that all stamp duty (except on land transfers) was abolished in Vic. So no loan stamp duty at all. Also no stamp duty on businesses. So you could purchase a property in a company name and transfer the shares to someome without stamp duty – as long as it was under the land rich entity threashold which is about 2 mil.

Terryw
Discover Home Loans
North Sydney
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SIS, I always thought self managed super funds had a maximum of 4 members.

Terryw
Discover Home Loans
North Sydney
[email protected]

It seems this topic is being debated on two threads at the same time.
https://www.propertyinvesting.com/forum/topic/17535/3.html

Terryw
Discover Home Loans
North Sydney
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I hear he has recently been promoting Lease Options and more recently Sandwich Lease options.

Terryw
Discover Home Loans
North Sydney
[email protected]

Robert asks if I am affiated with Steve Navra. No I am not, but I did his course about 4 years ago, and I wish I had implemented his strategies. I have not had anything to do with him or his organisation since.

I really recommend his courses though. He covers shares as well as property, and goes into detail about his various strategies. The courses last for 2 days, but he only charges around $200, which is very reasonable.

Terryw
Discover Home Loans
North Sydney
[email protected]

asdf

Are you trying to ask how could you use equity from the investments to buy a home and have the interest deductible?

If so, then you I beleive cannot unless you sell (=stamp duty, CGT etc). If owned jointly wiht a spouse, you could look at possibly buying his/her share and borrowing to do so. The money released could be used to pay for the PPOR and the investment loan would be higher. This may be possible in some states without paying stamp duty, but I am not sure on CGT.

Terryw
Discover Home Loans
North Sydney
[email protected]