Be very careful taking advice from people on this forum, they like to only look at data they like and ignore the important stuff. Clearly anyone who thinks bubbles inflate forever and prices will go so high that we will need the chinese to buy all our house's so we can rent them are not really the kind of people you want to take financial advice from. And Dopey doesnt think there is any credit problems in china. I guess something else is triggering the failing price in the resources.
I like your option - 2. sell, Retire. Buy a cheap house in the country, travel
If your going to travel for a long time, maybe just dump your stuff into storage go on the big travel trip and see what happens with housing when you get back.
Regardless what happens, one day interest rates will go up, and we know people are already strugling with current rates and when rates go up people sell which always push's the price back down. Will be interesting to see how quick it fails with people taking on bigger debts than they ever have.
