Should a property be bought under a company name for investment?

With appologies to Terryw and co, i respect their opinion – but, sorry i buck the trend here.

There are hundreds of thousands of people running business's in Australia – and most of them use a pty ltd structure (a company).
Why?  Because they are simple, standard and flexable – perfect if you choose to 'trade' (buy/sell) in property.
Whereas trusts are the opposite – complicated, all different and anything but flexable.
Perhaps if you are cashed-up, aged, fat gutted (joke!) with a big family, not pushing the red line, not aiming fo deals, not wanting to trade, asset rich & income poor/low – go with a trust. 
However – if you treat your investing/developing like a business – which it is – you want a structure that is simple, standard and flexable, that provides
*) at least a $5000 head start on land tax in NSW (that's $5000 extra you will pay each year with a trust)
*) pty ltd – cheaper to set up (becuase all the modern trusts use a pty ltd as the trustee anyway)
*) possibilities of selling a portion to your partner (as above) – via a simple share transfer 
*) banks love pty ltd (as per threads above) because they know who they are lending too
*) On selling?  capital gains? I hear you trusters say?  Again, great theory.  Companys are on a 30% tax rate, what's the top individual tax rate, 48% or something?  And –  not much in the way of capital gain out there at present. 
*) On selling? and i don't get this – why take the $$ out the company – what for?  Keep your $$ in the pty ltd, to build something big, Yes, the $$$ needs to stay in the pty ltd because it is going to spring board you into the next deal.
*) in summary – a better entity for a trader

Again, i apologise becuase this view point is counter to the info raised in previous threads.

But i struggle with – "what is the best structure", stuff, blanket, same for everybody.
More appropriate would be –  "what structure is best suited to you and what you want to do long term"

I am in the same position, also looking to get started in property investment & development. After reading these and other posts, is seems to me that one needs to differentiate between 1) long term buy-and-hold investing and 2) property development and selling/ trading / buy-renovate-sell etc i.e. short term holding.

If we look at 1) Long term buy-and-hold, it does seem that a Discretionary Trust structure is best, mainly due to 50% CGT > 12 months, asset protection and ability to allocate distributions to lowest tax bracket beneficiaries etc.

When looking at 2) Development etc i.e. carrying out a trade, a company seems to look the better option. This is due to the 30% flat tax rate (although this could be negated in a trust by allocating distributions) and ease of lending by banks.

So if developing, the question boils down to then, do banks prefer to lend to companies or discretionary trusts? In terms of initial purchase of the property and also subsequent construction finance etc?

A crucial part of property investing is gaining the finance to actually purchase the property, so I am keen to hear everyone's opinion and experiences. Thanks

Over the years I have changed my mind on using a company to own real property. I made a long post about this on another forum, but it can be beneficial to use a company because of the separate land tax threshold in some states such as NSW and also the ability to retain income and to pay it out at a future date with franking credits.

Certainly it is work considering.

Nigel Kibel wrote:

Here if you buy in a company you do not get the capitals gains 50% discount. A good accountant should be able to advise you what is the best structure.

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But often the land tax savings will outweigh the potential 5% or so in savings. Plus the franking credits could possibly reduce the CGT if income distributed to a discretionary trust shareholder and the to family members on low incomes