Found 1st IP, any advice on my idea? :-)

A trust would work very well if there was a profit straight away.

If there is a loss then it could cost you a bit more than holding in your own name. But this doesn't mean you shouldn't use a trust. You must weight up the benefits.

If you were self employed you could easily direct income into the trust to offset the loss and therefore save personal income tax. If not self employed then it is not as easy.

Also stamp duty would be payable on the transfer to a trust as well as CGT and legals. You would also lose a large amount of asset protection than you would if you had purchased it in the trust initially (clawback provisions of the Bankruptcy Act).

Not really sure what you mean by the income and viability bit.

If you had 4 or 5 properties you would still have the same issues. The trust could still have tax losses initially. But as time goes by older properties will become cashflow positive and this will offset the losses by newer properties.

If accessing equity from a trust there are the usual lender requirements which shouldn't pose much more of a problem. Then you have the additional trust law related problems. The trust assets are not your own and you mustn't use the funds for yourself at the expenses of other beneficiaries. keeping this in mind you should be able to access equity for further investments etc.