Froth Goth said..
Why go to work when you can just buy a shelter and rent it at jacked up prices buy 2 and you can live on a cruise ship while others work for you

You are late to the party. This thing is exactly what people are doing. Every couple of weeks there is some person in the media that bought 1 house when they were 19 and now have 20 plus and they have a huge amount of equity.

These aren't rocket scientists or people that have struggled for a long time, just ordinary people that have worked to build up some cash and then planned what properties to buy. The never ending increases and willingness of banks to lend because of this has caused lots of places to go up.

There is a certain approach though. I remember reading of a couple that lived near where I used to live. They stayed living with their parents, and turned their first purchase into a house that had two lots of tenants and more tenants living in the garage/granny flat. They made a lot from the one property whereas I would have just rented it out to a nice family. I suspect that they would have been a bit mean with improvements and repairs but that is only a guess. They buy strategically and sometimes don't bother buying a house to live in as its not as beneficial as renting something and buying another investment property,

A few years later and they had heaps of properties as they used the equity to buy even more and as long as they chose areas that were priced well, their investments just grew.

What did they really do to improve housing? Nothing really. Those houses were already occupied by renters or owner occupiers. But they got investment breaks almost as good as if they did. By deferring their tax they did it relatively easily too.

I got a bit annoyed with one collegue that used to say he 'worked hard' to buy his 12 investment properties... yeah mate, we all work just as hard.

Lots of people say that housing is treated like any investment. Sure, but should it be? Is it for people to live in or people to get rich from?

It can only change if people put pressure on politicians to change it. They often have investment properties themselves, so there is no great incentive for them.

Back in the old days, pre 2000, I remember people actively chosing to stay renting. House ownership was not seen as that great and renting was not that expensive. The boom in property investment hadn't taken off yet, until the capital gain discount suddenly made it more lucrative to flip houses every couple of years.