This is the single biggest reason to rent. As long as housing is part of a capital market, it will always cost you more money to rent, or else nobody could profit on it - but then, it’s just a matter of doing a cost-benefit calculation. If you actively enjoy doing the things that go into owning a home, then it’s not much of a cost; but if you don’t enjoy those things, then it’s pure negative time, and paying to rent makes sense.
That’s also why I really like the approach of a co-op or other urban high-density individually-owned housing - take out the landlord, gain stability in housing costs, share the burden of maintenance. A model of this can exist is less urban spaces - cohousing - but that really winds up just being intentional light urbanism. I think it’s also a good solution.
But also, fuck landlords exploiting the need for housing. The answer is to decommodify housing entirely, but I don’t see that being viable, so until then I actually think the most potential for stability lies in the urban co-op/condo approach, once the problems of co-op boards can be addressed.
