Ownership creates choices renters never face and obligations they never carry.

Owning a place hands you a set of decisions no one else can make and no one else has to carry. You can knock out the wall; you also cannot call anyone when the roof goes. Renting trades authority for lightness. Neither arrangement is superior, and pretending one is free of costs is how people end up resentful.

If you are weighing the two, name what you actually want more of: control or freedom from responsibility. Answer that honestly first, and the financial comparison becomes much easier to read.