I agree the costs of ownership need to be weighed against the cost of renting, however most people do those sums incorrectly.
What I mean by this is that they take their total mortgage payment + the other costs (insurance, rates, maintenance etc) and compare that to the weekly rent.
In my opinion this is the wrong way to look at it.
1. Only the interest component of the mortgage payment is an expense, the principle payment is technically savings, eg principle payments are like a bank account you can access later, not a genuine cost.
2. Only part of the interest charge is a “real expense”, part of it is just an inflation offset, eg if you pay 4% interest, and the inflation rate is 3% you are really only spending 1% on interest and the other 3% is basically added back to the capital value of your home.
3, all the insurance, rates, maintenance etc are real costs, but when you add these to the small real after inflation interest rate, the weekly costs are small compared to renting.
This is why over the long term home owners end up way ahead, because their interest payments decline over the years as the loan shrinks, while the capital value increases with the principle payments accumulation, and the inflation offsets.
Where as the cost of renting never really decreases, and only goes up with inflation.