[_puk]

But renting is a problem if there's no asset at the end of it.

Even if rents were capped at half what a mortgage for the same property is, you still are in a position that once the asset of the house is paid off the landlord now has an asset that earns income without labour.

And the inverse.

Regardless of what you earn (to a point, even into higher income brackets), if you do not put it into an asset that can house you, and you stop earning, you cannot live without reducing your overall capital.

So rental means a lack of opportunity to reduce your labour dependent income over time (important as you age), and a reduced ability to weather negative life events.

[microgpt]

Paying to consume something continually isn't inherently wrong. We do that with food. If you like, you could offset it with UBI.

A separate concern is who should receive the money and how we morally justify that, since they didn't produce anything or work to earn it.

[wqaatwt]

It can work (and did in some places in Western Europe for a while) if housing stock is mostly state owned and/or communal. Of course that introduces some other issues