Rough arithmetic here but if an apartment is worth $1million and you sell it and put the money in a high-earning account you will get about $55,000 a year. An apartment of the same value as the one you just sold should cost you about $850 a week $44k over the year. So you are $11k ahead … until your landlord asks for a 10 per cent increase every year (as they are perfectly entitled to do). Two years in and you might need to be digging into that capital or just have the hassle of finding somewhere new to live
A smarter move might be to let your apartment and negatively gear it, then rent somewhere better. Then you won’t have the hassle of living in a community you don’t like, you will still get capital gain but you still have the uncertainty of what happens when the lease expires.
The Australian system is simply not set up for long-term renters otherwise your plan would be pretty sound.