Many different answers to this, location, price range, duration of occupancy, all have a bearing on the rent or buy question.
We are living in our 5th home currently, the first four we made good money on by living for only a few years, buying right in the right location, renovating to suit the market, not necessarily ourselves then selling. Our current home is going to be totally different and there is no chance of making any sort of a profit, if we'd rented we would be way ahead. Why?
We moved to the Gold Coast in 2005 for family and schooling reasons, bought in a good, quiet area that was liked by the Banks, they knew they wouldn't lose if things went pear shaped. Paid $497k for a 4 bedder on 1000m block and we had a healthy deposit, we plan to sell this year targeting $850k less selling costs and Mortgage payout. We may have around $600k in our hand, so why are we going backwards when compared to renting?
We've renovated putting about $150k in, if we hadn't our selling price would be only around $650-700k. In addition there there is the Mortgage, around $400k over 15 yrs, rates, and other statutory costs $40k, then there are all the little Bunnings buys, 15yrs of bits and pieces, and don't forget CPI. If we rented over 15 yrs it would have cost us about the same as the Mortgage, but we wouldn't have shelled out the deposit, the statutory costs, the renovations, the Bunnings bits and the final mortgage payout (our mortgage is 30yrs) so could be $3-400k in front.
So what went wrong?.... We bought a home not a renovator as the primary target, we stayed too long and though the market has moved it stalled in 2008, our area is a stable family area so growth is solid but not excessive due to outside factors like public infrastructure.
We've had a lot of property both here and overseas so knew our current home would not make money, what we needed was stability for our daughter to complete school and uni, and you can't put a price on that.
Every area is different and this reflects in rental prices, purchase costs, profit growth, certainly you can make money on the house you live in, but I believe you need to plan to do that by what you buy at the beginning and be aware of all influencing factors. Then you might just get lucky like the Nar Nar Goon farmers
https://7news.com.au/business/prope...ter-almost-selling-for-265k-in-2004-c-2050470
But is renting better that buying, there is no right or wrong answer in my mind, it's all about situation. Would we buy again?.... right now I have no idea, all I know is our Camper is bloody comfortable and being a nomad very attractive