Is renting better than buying a home?

Numbers match the citations in the article. A working link isn't proof that a page supports a claim; check the quoted passage and date.

1. 1

   Are renters being left behind? : homeownership and wealth accumulation in Canadian cities

   cIRcle (University of British Columbia) (Somerville et al.)Published Jan 1, 2017Checked Oct 3, 2026

   “The promotion of homeownership is an important policy of governments around the world. One motivation for this support is the benefits to local communities from the greater neighbourhood involvement of homeowners.1 For individual buyers, an often cited benefit of homeownership is that it is a good way to accumulate wealth. Certainly it is an important element of wealth; the median Canadian household has over 50 percent of their wealth in their home.2 We are interested in just how much homeownership itself contributes to wealth. The greater homeownership’s role in building household wealth, the bigger will be the wealth gap between owners and renters. This paper examines whether by not owning a home, do renters miss a critical opportunity to build wealth: do they miss the great wealth accumulation boat? This draft: January 29, 2007”

2. 2

   Renting versus Owning and the Role of Income Risk

   edoc Publication server (Humboldt University of Berlin) (Schulz et al.)Published Dec 3, 2009Checked Oct 3, 2026

   “In a world with complete markets and no transactions cost, the decision whether to rent or buy a home is separate from a household's professional income risk. If markets are incomplete and have frictions, however, profession- specific income risk, regional house price risk, and mobility needs will interact and should affect the tenure mode choice. Using panel data from West Germany, we establish homogeneous profession groups and estimate their regional net income risk and regional mobility. We then examine the impact of the risk and mobility variables on the tenure mode decision at the aggregate and the individual household level. We find that the diversification potential of renting affects the tenure mode choice as do mobility needs.”

3. 3

   The widening mental health gap between American homeowners and renters: 2013-2023.

   Discover mental health (Kuroki)Published Feb 4, 2026Checked Oct 3, 2026

   “The findings revealed a significant divergence in mental health trends between homeowners and renters. After adjusting for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, the adjusted difference in reported poor mental health days between renters and homeowners widened from 0.4 in 2013 to 1.3 days in 2023. This disparity was significantly more pronounced in states with high housing price growth compared to states with lower growth. This study highlights a widening mental health gap between American homeowners and renters. The results suggest a potentially increasing protective association of homeownership with mental well-being, while the growing challenges associated with renting, such as affordability and housing insecurity, may be contributing to a deterioration in renters' mental health.”

4. 4

   Do Renters Miss the boat? Homeownership, Renting, and Wealth Accumulation

   Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks (Somerville et al.)Published Jan 1, 2007Checked Oct 3, 2026

   “The promotion of homeownership is an important policy of governments around the world. A variety of researchers have identified important social benefits that can justify public subsidies to promote homeownership. 1 For individuals, homeownership plays an important role in wealth accumulation. The median U.S. household has over 50 percent of their non-pension wealth in home equity and wealth levels for owners greatly exceed those of renters at all income levels. 2 However, there remains the question whether this reflects a choice in how much to save or in not owning a home, do renters miss the great wealth accumulation boat? These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.”

5. 5

   The changing nature or the rent vs. buy decision and implications for the housing market

   Deakin Research Online (Deakin University) (Reed & Greenhalgh)Published Jan 1, 2002Checked Oct 3, 2026

   “Being frugal and staying very close to home, spending very little and sacrificing a social life have been proven means of achieving this goal. The undisputed goal was always to save enough for a deposit and commit to a mortgage for their own house, commonly referred to and promoted by the real estate industry as ‘the great Australian dream’. The level of housing affordability in Australia has decreased substantially over the last twenty years as shown in Table 1, coupled with a comparatively steady rise in house prices. A number of reasons can be attributed to these changes, including the deregulation of the banking industry in the mid-1980s and sustained low inflation. Even so there has been little explanation given as to why the house price levels for Australia, and New Zealand to a certain extent, have increased from the average to now well above international standards (Ellis & Andrews, 2001). This places tremendous pressure on the level of housing affordability for those Australian purchasers faced with a tenure 'rent vs. buy' decision. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Ireland Spain Italy Australia Britain USA Belgium Canada Japan Sweden France Netherlands Germany”

6. 6

   Owning versus Renting a Home—Prospects for Generation Z

   Sustainability (Napiórkowska-Baryła et al.)Published May 31, 2024Checked Oct 3, 2026

   “The study attempted to identify the housing preferences of young people to determine whether they prefer renting a flat or owning one. Although generation Z differs from older generations in many respects, their perception of the housing issue does not differ significantly from the attitudes presented by older generations. The dominant model of the housing system in Poland, the non-commodified-familial model, which prefers ownership over renting, is also shared by the youngest generation. Hence, the conclusion addressed to the public authorities and the financing system is to enable the expansion of the credit offer supported by a long-term savings plan aimed at young people. Renting as an alternative way of securing housing needs is also perceived positively, with nearly 80% of respondents stating that they would be able to live in rented accommodation, mainly due to greater mobility, rising property prices and reluctance to take out a long-term loan. Hence, we suggest the need to support institutional renting along the lines of other countries with similar housing systems.”

7. 7

   Homeownership and Wealth in Switzerland and Germany

   Life course research and social policies (Kuhn & Grabka)Published Jan 1, 2018Checked Oct 3, 2026

   “Homeownership is linked to wealth accumulation in several ways: Wealthier households are more likely to buy a house or apartment, home owners tend to save more and rising house values typically yield higher returns than money in a bank account. Moreover, owners can borrow on a mortgage to finance, e.g., the formation of an enterprise or other economic activities. At the aggregate level, these relations can explain why countries with low rates of homeownership tend to have a high wealth inequality. This paper looks at wealth and homeownership in Germany and Switzerland. These countries show the lowest proportion of owner-occupiers in Europe and a high wealth inequality. We analyse to what extent this high inequality can be explained by homeownership status. In the first part of this contribution, we review explanations for the low share of owner-occupiers in the two countries. In the second part, we analyse wealth and homeownership empirically using data of the SHP and the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) from 2012. We make use of decomposition methods to analyse how renter and owner households differ in wealth levels and wealth inequality.”

8. 8

   Private Renting vs. Mortgage Home Buying: Case of British Housing Market—A Bayesian Network and Directed Acyclic Graphs Approach

   Buildings (Sobieraj & Metelski)Published Feb 7, 2022Checked Oct 3, 2026

   “More specifically, we take into account variables such as first-time buyers (FTB), mortgage payments, rent payments, share of mortgage/rent in household income, and receipt of housing benefit (HB), with some variables also reflecting a regional breakdown (captured separately for London and England excluding London) to illustrate the complex nature of regional differences in explaining changes in housing tenure. We address some of the problems and challenges of the housing market in the U.K. today, and, in particular, examine what influences private renters and those buying with a mortgage. A key conclusion from this study is that housing benefit does not necessarily ease the way for private renters into their own housing. The study is quantitative in nature and uses the English Housing Survey and Bayesian network (BN) analysis. Unlike traditional methods, such as multiple regression or panel regression, where the researcher somehow suggests the type of a relationship between certain variables, BN’s learning algorithm analyses different iterations between variables and finds the most appropriate relationships between them.”