Yeh I think a lot of people don't seem to get this. My husband and I have an "investment property" (super rural, was sub $200k, all we could afford for a first house, not much more than a shed) that my parents live in now after we moved to a city for work. They pay a tiny amount of rent which only covers a portion of the mortgage repayments, so the place is negatively geared.

But the money we're spending on keeping my parents housed is not free money we get back in full at tax time. Some of it just comes off our taxable income, so we get a very slight tax break. I cbf doing the full maths right now but if we spend $4000 on rates and water and interest for that house we might get something like $1000 off our owed tax. Still down $3000. Plus down the principal mortgage repayments not covered by rent (~$4000), because they can't be claimed.

Which is fine. I'm grateful to be in a position to be able to support my parents, and I know it's not a typical landlord situation.

I'm also certainly not saying negative gearing is totally fine and should never be questioned. There are definitely too many consessions that parasites with huge portfolios of properties take advantage of. And I'm sure there are people that game the system to their full advantage.

I just, yeah, for me negative gearing just very slightly reduces how much it costs to not charge my parents much rent. It's not a golden goose or anything.