It really depends on what marginal tax bracket hubby is in.
If you increase the rent by $5 per week then you need to
decrease your negative gearing loss by $5 * 52 minus real estate agent commission increase)
A whole $260 a year.
Contact your accountant and mention you may need to re-submit a tax variation form as the rent has increased by $260 a year.

If you want to stay negative maybe you have some improvement that needs doing that you have to borrow money to get done.
Carpet renewal , repaint, new kitchen, an evaporative central air conditioner and heating ($8000 cost) , ect
Or maybe if you get real positive buy another investment property.

P.S interest rates went up .25% on melbourne cup day that will change your calculations unless you have a fixed interest rate.

Hi Cana05,

The ultimate objective of property investing is to have positively geared properties. Besides, all properties will end up positively geared unless you keep increasing the mortgage. When your property becomes positively geared and you still want to be negatively geared, then it is time to invest again. Plenty of options – maybe buy another property or shares or topping up your super or any other types of investment you want.

I agree with previous response, increase the rent if you can.

Hope this helps,
co

As an Accountant and a fellow Investor, I suggest putting up the rent and ignoring the tax benefits.
In my opinion, a loss will be a loss!

At the end of the day, a dollar in your pocket is another dollar for you to invest in before tax time!
I'd rather gain an extra $1 than save $0.30cents in tax gains. Get the drift?

Only works when you have a complex tax structure and high income

If hubby sticks the $260 into super in would be a voluntary contribution and would not change the positive gearing to negative gearing.
However if you (wife) are on a low income and hubby puts money into your super annuation account on your behalf you may qualify for the

Superannuation spouse contribution tax offset

http://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/content.asp?doc=/content/19144.htm

If you spend the $260 per year on an improvement via a small redraw loan via increased interest charge or on a repair or improvement that is a tax deductible expense you will be reducing your net property loss as opposed to net property income.

You  need to seek financial advice from a licensed financial advisor on buying shares with borrowed money as as it is a risker method and may not suit your situation

With a higher risk factor you can borrow money from the house loan with a split loan and put in into shares that pay a dividend and be able to claim the interest of $260 a year as an expense used to earn dividend income.

might be worth discussing with your tax man/ agent as a possible method.

Hubby can claim depreciation if the house if positively geared. You just have to have tax already paid on other incomes.

You can reach a situation when you own a lot of properties were your total depreciation is greater than the amount taxable on your income. So as an example you earn $60,000 p/a but depreciation is $54,000 a year . anymore depreciation above $54,000 would be in the tax free threshold as the first $6000 earned is tax free. Also you have different tax rates in each wage bracket so tax saves reduces as depreciation reduces your taxable income to below the next previous tax scale.

on a tangent

If you do not increase the rent by small amounts each year your tenant gets use to no rental increases and then when you put the rent up a small amount your tenant leaves the property or abandons it (happen to me) . So it is a good idea to condition the tenant to having modest rental increases each year rather than suddenly having a massive rental hike 6 years later when you realise you need to raise the rent to get up to market rent.