Have you considered CTC?
If successful you'd be in the RHS of an airline in around 18 months.
You could buy a property once you find out where you are based. Moving house costs a lot of money, and if the predictions are correct and the housing market does collapse you could find yourself in negative equity. Negative equity is not a major problem if you are happy to stay put and wait for the houses value to rise again, but if you find yourself based at Gatwick and need to sell up and move that could also cost you lots of money.
I think you have to ask what is more important to you, getting on the property ladder or getting into the RHS of an airline. If you delay getting on the property ladder it could mean that in 10 years time you are not as well off as you could have been, however that needs to be balanced against your earlier promotion to captaincy. If you delay getting into the airline industry it could be that the greens get their way, or there's another massive terrorist attack and you may never make that right hand seat. There's lots of people that say you've got years to fly planes, but who knows what this business is going to be like in 20 years time. Maybe the aircraft will fly themselves and they'll only need a single pilot just in case the automatics go wrong! What if your health takes a dive in a few years time? I’d obviously be very unhappy if I lost my medical, however at least I can say I’ve done this fantastic job and then go back to my old job. I’d be gutted if a waited 2 years to make myself a bit more money and then found that I lost my medical just prior to completing my training.
I say, get into the business as soon as possible, and then work out what career change you want in 15 years time once you're bored of flying.
Just my thoughts. Taking cover now!
SW