One important thing that has not been mentioned is that share...

One important thing that has not been mentioned is that share trading and living off dividends is significantly less work than property investment which is not guaranteed to bring you steady money, for example some renters don't pay prefering for you to go to vcat which they very well know is a very long process, all the while staying in your house.

Then you have maintenance issues, so many people have reported that their houses have been trashed ad that to normal wear and tear issues and property maintenance can be extremely time consuming and expensive.

Then theirs the return on investment, I could buy a 200k property in Melbourne and perhaps get 9k back in rent less body corporate, less RatEs, less maintenance costs or I could buy 200 K worth of shares in a high dividend paying company like bhp or fmg and if bought at the right time could see a return of up to $35 K annually without all the headaches and additional expenses.

im in the fortunate position to have both which puts me in a good position to way up the pros and cons and after years of headaches I can confidently say that if you've got a cool head on your shoulders then shares trump property any day. This belief is so strong in my mind that I'm thinking of selling my property to buy more fmg shares as well as other high dividend paying shares and living off the regular dividend payments and not having to work a single day in this life time ever again.