[rezgi]

Owning isn't free either. Instead of paying your landlord rent, you pay rent to the city (property taxes), the bank (mortgage), repairmen, and to opportunity cost (these x00,000$ would yield interest/dividends if invested and not tied up in your house)

In some places, it's also much cheaper to rent that own after factoring all this in.

[eru]

The opportunity cost of the capital is really important.

However, many jurisdiction give tax advantage to owner occupied property.

Eg you have to pay all kinds of taxes on the return from a million dollars in the stock market, compared to the housing services you consume from your own million dollar house.

(That's in most countries. In eg Singapore we don't have capital gains tax. So it's a bit more even.)

[me_me_me]

I would like to see those mythical places one day.

[robohoe]

Yeah in the sticks or areas nobody wants to live in.

Joking aside, Midwest tends to be cheaper. Chicagoland area is far cheaper than SF or NYC and yet has a lot of good paying jobs.

[jermaustin1]

In Manhattan, it is generally MUCH cheaper to rent than buy (at least in the short to mid term. $3000 in rent would get you the same as a $5k/mo mortgage.

[ornornor]

Any place with an overheated real estate market.

Toronto is one, you could rent a condo worth 600-700k for 2k a month when the mortgage alone before local taxes etc would be over 3k.