It pays to buy a house: Here are the areas where homeowners gained the most wealth in the last decade. Over the past decade, the median-priced home in the U.S. Gained $190,000 in value, making the typical homeowner 40 times wealthier than if they had remained a renter, according to a new report. Source 8n.
Economically, it isn't always the best to buy a house. The biggest consideration for whether to buy vs whether to rent is the mortgage interest rate, which has been rising back up after quite some time. The other problem with buying a house is that the supply of housing hasn't been growing too much, especially in some urban areas like in California, leading to exorbitant housing prices. This sort of thing can lead to a cycle where when the cost of living goes up, so does upward pressure on wages, which leads to a rise in prices for goods and services, which leads to a need for more wages to live, and so on.
It's always great to build equity rather than give money away to a landlord of course. But that can be made difficult by real estate brokerages buying up tons of real estate and hoarding it. Just one side of a multi-faceted issue.