Comment by poisonborz

Except owning a house costs way more than the mortgage itself, that renters dont pay. Taxes, maintenance and improvement costs, which are massive considering most people can only afford houses built in the 60-80s, and governments like Germany has strict regulations. Couple this with the risk of suddenly not be able to pay - you can sell, like if you want to break out of the inflexibility of living in one place, but then see your maintainer investments flow in most cases.