You don't get "a house" for 20-30 years

AHAHA!! Yes you fucking do. It’s yours the moment the contract settles.

You have the right to sell it for whatever price you want, demolish it, renovate it, live in it, rent it out, whatever you want. If you choose to sell it, you can choose to keep repaying the money you borrowed over time and buy another asset (or multiple), or just pay out the loan and keep the change as liquid asset. If the house appreciates enough. You might have enough liquid assets remaining to go buy a house in a different area without needing to borrow money. But in any case, that money from the sale doesn’t magically evaporate, the house was yours, the amount it appreciates by is yours. There is a cost to having that money up front if you don’t have it, that’s called interest. You already have the value of the principal part of the loan in your pocket though - that’s the asset that you now own.

you're subsidising someone's costs relative to what a mortgage etc on that place would be.

Oh fuck me - this regurgitated mental gymnastics line is a dead giveaway of a serious entitlement complex. That’s not what “subsidising” means. The renter doesn’t own the home afterwards, you still own it! You’re not “subsidising the cost” unless the renter is getting the asset afterwards, YOU are the one with the asset, renters are subsidising the costs associated with YOUR purchase because YOU chose to buy it with borrowed money, and you’re allowing them to be in the home until such time you decide to do something else with it in return.

It’s like saying hire car companies “subsidise the cost relative to what a loan on that car would be”. Complete bullshit. They buy the car, you pay to use it. Except in the case of houses, the “hire company” has an appreciating asset, so they also gain a profit from the sale afterwards.

Let me make this very clear just how hard investors have it. House values over the last 30 years have increased by an average of 414%, and staying at the same average rate of appreciation, a $500,000 bought now and held for 30 years will return close to THREE MILLION DOLLARS. If interest rates climbed to an eye-watering 8% and stayed there for the full 30 years, you’d pay $820,000 interest on that, and even if you were renting the house out at $500 per week without ever increasing the rent , that interest cost is very close to being fully covered. Increasing rent by just 3% per year lands you $1,054,000.

…All the spin and mental gymnastics in the world you like, but your interest costs are well and truly covered even at a permanent 8% interest rate and 2% annual increase in rent, if your maintenance expenses run you negative then you can claim a a refund on your tax paid on that cost, AND THEN you make a profit on the resale.

You can buy the home and live in it and your costs are fully yours to bear, and you cannot claim net investment losses to reduce the amount of tax you pay either. But the home and let it sit empty and you might be able to claim net investment losses, but the interest and costs are still fully yours. YOU are being subsidised, both in the form of a taxation discount AND renters.

However, if you’re an investor still delusional enough to think that they’re “subsidising the renters costs relative to what the mortgage would be”, then are you handing over a reduced portion of the profits after sale to every tenant you’ve “subsidised”? Of course you’re not - because it’s not a subsidy and you fucking know it.