Home and property ownership are deeply tied to some of your fundamental rights given as a citizen in the US. Many freedoms granted to you can be superceded once property is owned by other private entities because they require a spatial context.
Take gun ownership or something less controversial: a grill. If you own the home, you can grill to your heart's content. If you rent, there's likely all sorts of rights you forfeit in a contractual agreement (lease) and using a grill is often explicitly banned (it's a fire hazard and doesn't effect the property owner to disallow it, only helps them).
Thankfully, many states have enacted protections that override what can be contracturally restricted for living dwellings, granting new explicit rights but these are by no means exhaustive and vary from state to state and even by municipality.
In the case described, you're choosing convenience over liberty. "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." In this case I would support home ownership over dealing with mild inconveniences of maintenance (then again, I'm used to performing maintenance).
At the same time, many don't have that same choice and its not about choosing prefered conveniences. Renting is the only option for many because they can't even imagine starting a mortgage or gathering the necessary downpayment. On-top of that, as mentioned by others, property ownership becomes a huge financial liability that in today's economy and job market for many makes juggling finances even harder by reducing socioeconomic mobility. Maybe they wish to own and could currently afford it but the liability is too great to consider due to volatility in the job market.
With ownership, slightly better income opportunities often have to be passed by because once relocation fees, market flux, and logistics of a current mortgage are factored in, many opportunities turn out to be large setbacks. Unfortunately many must choose between renting and flexibility for enough income to live reasonably vs many granted rights they're forced to give up in order to survive--I dont consider this a convenience choice. This should not be the case, but IMHO, it's a result of the ongoing further and rapid concenteation of wealth and power in the United States that lead to these scenarios.
We are losing our country to a very few peoples' gains. Perhaps its always been this way but it feels like a more recent trend from my limited view
Take gun ownership or something less controversial: a grill. If you own the home, you can grill to your heart's content. If you rent, there's likely all sorts of rights you forfeit in a contractual agreement (lease) and using a grill is often explicitly banned (it's a fire hazard and doesn't effect the property owner to disallow it, only helps them).
Thankfully, many states have enacted protections that override what can be contracturally restricted for living dwellings, granting new explicit rights but these are by no means exhaustive and vary from state to state and even by municipality.
In the case described, you're choosing convenience over liberty. "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." In this case I would support home ownership over dealing with mild inconveniences of maintenance (then again, I'm used to performing maintenance).
At the same time, many don't have that same choice and its not about choosing prefered conveniences. Renting is the only option for many because they can't even imagine starting a mortgage or gathering the necessary downpayment. On-top of that, as mentioned by others, property ownership becomes a huge financial liability that in today's economy and job market for many makes juggling finances even harder by reducing socioeconomic mobility. Maybe they wish to own and could currently afford it but the liability is too great to consider due to volatility in the job market.
With ownership, slightly better income opportunities often have to be passed by because once relocation fees, market flux, and logistics of a current mortgage are factored in, many opportunities turn out to be large setbacks. Unfortunately many must choose between renting and flexibility for enough income to live reasonably vs many granted rights they're forced to give up in order to survive--I dont consider this a convenience choice. This should not be the case, but IMHO, it's a result of the ongoing further and rapid concenteation of wealth and power in the United States that lead to these scenarios.
We are losing our country to a very few peoples' gains. Perhaps its always been this way but it feels like a more recent trend from my limited view