Thanks for the replies, i guess we are a little different as we would ideally like to buy a house where we want to be (live) in say 5-10 years down the track. So although we wouldnt be living in the house initally we would eventually end up living in it so it would have to be a house that we would eventually be happy to live in permanently ykwim.
We are looking at the Far North Coast NSW with some land, rentals are far and few between at this particular spot and i think if we bought now not only are we going to be able to use it as a tax rebate but also gets us closer to getting to where we eventually want to be with us paying minimal for those 5-10 years.