Excellent article, Shane Philip.

There is such social status with owning that may change over time. It happened with autos -- more people lease than buy (at least new) and the negative connotations no longer exists.

We perhaps would be better off by treating renting, buying or other as a finacial mechanism for providing place and shelter and not get fixated on one option or the other.

Running a house is often much more expensive than most people believe. Its individual nature requires individual everything -- driveway, heating, cooling, insurance etc. Very different from a group of housing where these costs are shared.