Probably a few.

There's been plenty of articles over the years in the national papers spruiking the best areas to buy into for rental returns. Mining towns are good, especially when they're in the boom part of their cycle and housing is getting squeezed.

A lot of rental demand in those kinds of regional areas comes from people with a 2 to 5 year plan who don't want to buy to live "forever" in a social backwater. So a lot of investment property owners can then ride through the "bust" part of the cycle on the backs of those people.

I think a lot of those regional/remote ones are skewed by FiFo workers in the mining sector.

It's also affected by Universities where there is high demand for rental because of all the students.

For example, suburbs in Vic where renting is more expensive than buying include Melbourne (with RMIT and VU campuses), Carlton (Melb Uni and RMIT), Travancore (near the teaching hospitals, Melb Uni and RMIT Brunswick), and Notting Hill (Monash and Deakin).

And that's why people prefer to have their own home, even if it's an apartment where they can't plant an orchard.

And the flip sides

• Renting: downsize? Okay - was gonna get booted or priced out anyway
• Owning: downsize? Now for a fight against your 'forever home' instincts.

I own an apartment and there's not that many costs. I think rates are like $800 a year and the body corp fees are about $900 a quarter

Mortgage (currently) is only about $900 a fortnight. Works out similar to rent overall, except eventually I get to own it.

Renting is a scam and there should be better protections in place. I only managed to buy my apartment because I lived in a vehicle for 4 years while working full time, and the government shared equity scheme owns 25% of it.

Sure, but getting your foot in the door with a mortgage s still a great incentive for many who'd rather sleep on an inflatable mattress on the floor of their own place than rent for ever, especially at the exorbitant rental costs in this country.

Im not in australia but yeah. assesment, mortgage, insurance. Its over a grand a month. Lower than rent for sure but you still have that and only after you pay off your mortgage which is often when you are retired. Moving to a new city for a job becomes that much more complicated. Gotta pay rent in the new place and mortgage plus the rest till you sell. If that happens during a crash then maybe you walk away but then that whole time your monthly cost was over renting and you never got that sweet after payoff deal. Further the renter can put the difference into savings or investments for 30 years.