Well in that case, yeah, I can't imagine any reason you would rent. But in my neck of the woods renting a place is a little more than half the cost of the equivalent mortgage on the same property.

You would rent because you’d lack the deposit and income a bank would require of you for the same property.

Now that I have a mortgage, it’s much less than the rent I was paying for a similar property. This is the case in most developed cities on Earth.

> Now that I have a mortgage, it’s much less than the rent I was paying for a similar property.

This is what my parents kept telling me would happen but no one in my late 20s social circle who've bought houses (including myself) has been able to make it happen. Even my friends who got locked in at the 2% interest rates still pay about $300 more than the equivalent rent. I live in a, by population, a top 30 city in the US and actually live in the city, not its "surrounding metro area."

Where on earth is this land of beneficent landlords? Do you live in Hobbiton or on the island from Lost