Not one of the last 30 posts or so has been about getting to the end game. It's been about why where you live, or want to live, is better than anywhere else, and nowhere else is worth a pinch of salt.The original topic is about getting to the end game. My view is that the end game should consist of a good PPOR, that is either paid off or can easily be paid off from other assets/income stream. I think that the thread may be being derailed by reverse snobbery - Mt. Druitt dwellers justifying the joys of their Mt. Druitt subsistence and annoyed when anyone suggests that anything outside Mt. Druitt must be no good.
Back on the original topic. I would maintain that, in the absence of a high flier income, it's better to buy and have a mortgage than rent and save to buy outright. I've suggested this previously, with figures, but that has been ignored. I strongly suspect that buying IPs before one's house is paid off would be even more advantageous. That's providing a modest rise in prices over a longer period of time- and if this did not happen, even owning your own home unencumbered would not be worth while doing.
In regards as to where one chooses to live. Peter Spann used to say that the upper end of town was far more susceptible to economic cycles than many other places. When the stock market is flying, people who make a lot of money spend it in expensive places to live- and vice versa. So these sorts of places go higher in an upturn, and lower in a downturn. This may be why China has lost value in the place he has bought. A place in such an area would be a good buy if one were to be able to pick the cycle ahead of time. In the meantime, many other areas lower in value (not necessarily in desirability) are more likely to have a much less volatile movement in price, making a more secure investment- to live in or to invest in.
Please stay on the topic of the End Game- not on the areas you think are desirable and which ones you think are not.