Investing to eventually buy own home

[Zorwarrior]

Hi all,
I have a investing dilema with a twist....I have been a property investor for the last 5 years and have tried different strategies. I currently have 2 investment buy & hold properties left that I bought 3-4 years ago in high growth areas and they have gone up by 50% & 80% so far.
I am heading overseas for a few years soon and I want to increase my portfolio before going. I want to buy two more but here is the twist...one of these I want to be able to live in eventually when I come back to Auckland (therefore a nice place would be great) and would want to rent that out until I return (I know I have to pay depreciation recovery when I live in it). Now for a nice-ish house in a good area in Auckland, we are talking nice money too which means that it will definately be negatively geared.

What do you think my best options are in this case?

1) Buy two or more pure investments now and refinance (or sell) them on my return to put towards my own nice place?
2) Buy a nice place now and rent it out and take the negative gearing hit? (means that at least for a few years someone else is paying part of the mortage payments of my own place and then just pay the depreciation recovery tax on return)
3) Wait and hope that my nice place is under 200 million $$$ by the time I get back to the country!!!!!


HELP...

Confused

[Glenn]

I do not offer myself out as any sort of tax understanding person.
However I think perhaps you have some misunderstanding about negative gearing and tax. Alternatively there is other information that you have not declared on your post.
To the best of my knowlege (which is not very good) you can not use the lossess on your negatively geared properties to offset your earnings overseas.
Your status as a non resident tax payer is influenced by the ownership of a family home in NZ.
Losses in a trust are locked in that trust and can be carried forward for use in future years to be offset against furture income.

As you can see the issues are open ended and as you realise are confusing.
You need to search out an accountant that is familar with non resident tax. Note there is a signifcant difference between those accountants that are familar with property investing and those familar with non resident tax.

[Zorwarrior]

Hi Glenn,

My properties are currently in a LAQC. I live elsewhere at very low rent. So I dont have a family home as such.I am going to check with the IRD if I will qualify as a non-resident.
I am told that the losses can stay in the LAQC and can be taken advantage of on my return. Not sure if this is correct.