Alan Spicer owns his own home and doesn't want more property. But the Newcastle-based accountant has, partly to his own surprise, been building up wealth in another asset that also benefits from negative gearing but is lesser-known – caravans.

Spicer, in fact, now owns three vans, two based in Brisbane and one in Melbourne. He's never seen them – they're leased and managed by other people – but they pay their own way and he expects to make a capital gain at the end of the five-year period he expects to own them.