Once again, all good input, thanks
You can't really invest the money CX/KA give you for a mortgage ( instead of putting it into a mortgage ), coz if you don't have a mortgage you only get the rent allowance, which is significantly different ( 35k plus ).
So there is some merit to buying a place even if it's value goes down, as long as it doesn't go down a lot of course.
Rent money is always dead money and unless you rent somewhere really cheap ( ie bank the diff between allowance and actual rent ), there is nothing to be gained from renting.