[tsuyoshi]

You don't mention buying an apartment, so I will assume you meant "rent a house or buy a house" rather than "rent an apartment or buy a house". I know that in some places, choosing whether to rent or buy also means choosing between an apartment and a house.

Aside from the financial considerations (mortgage interest income tax deduction, homeowner property tax deduction), there are some problems with renting that are magnified with a house rather than an apartment. There is maintenence (mowing the lawn, cleaning up graffiti, removing weeds/garbage from the front sidewalk, properly insulating the house) that is normally performed by the resident owner, which both the nonresident owner and the nonowner resident have a lower incentive to perform. For the nonresident owner, it's because they don't care about the quality of life for the resident, and for the nonowner resident, it's because they don't care about improving the property value for the owner. This is one big reason why "bad" neighborhoods are so poorly maintained: most people are renting. In "good" neighborhoods, usually most residents own their home.

On the other hand, it's popular just to see homeownership as a good way to engage in leveraged property speculation, but that really depends on whether you're living in a prosperous city or not. Buying a house in San Francisco is probably a good investment; buying a house in Detroit is probably not.