Buy regional investment or buy city ppor?

Here’s a decision I’ve somewhat been seriously tossing up:

Currently live in Sydney and thinking about either:

Buying a regional place (using the first time buyers grant) and living in it for 6-12 months. Say the rough cost would be 700-800k for a fairly basic house. Would then lease it out after and then continue to rent in the city.

Buying a 2 bed apartment somewhere around Sydney and living in it for 3-5 years. Rough cost of this would be between 1-1.3 mil. No first time grant and obviously a higher mortgage payment with less initially equity in the short term.

Anyone gone through the same decision and what did you end up doing? Think most here will say buy a PPOR but keen to know if anyone went the other way with it.