I suspect when we hear about this type of investment style these...

I suspect when we hear about this type of investment style these days, it may conjure up a nasty reaction, as taking on too much debt, by both governments and individuals, mainly overseas is why we are in the middle of this GFC.

The GFC is costing us all a lot of money. The first round in 2008 took me down 900K in shares, but managed to recover it all by averaging down late 08 early 09. We pay the price for people selling other people credit like it's some sort of joke.

Those returns of 13% are stella TCI, and sure if the student demand remained for a couple of decades, that would be a low risk investment. What if the AUD becomes so strong and other conditions affecting choice of OS students to come here change.

As with mining town properties, I think there is a good reason yields are double to quadruple the national average, because they are more risky.

If you really know your market and have done a lot of homework you could work with the risk and make educated decisions, keep costs low, I agree, like UT, however that appears to be close to a full time job. If your full time job is property, then you should be good at it.

IMO for the average investor in the property market however, they don't have all week to work on it, and the yield is half to three quarters of the outgoings.