I owned a house for many years, my wife fixed up the inside, and I was an avid gardner, and spent all my time planting, dreaming, I hate to tell you how much I spent, buying little plants mail order. When I got divorced, I fought hard to keep the house, but when she was gone, it was just an empty burden. Now I have an apartment, my rent is about what my mortgage was, but I am happier than a pig in shit. The landlord is fantastic, I can walk to the store, I can go to Las Vegas, and all I have to do is lock the door, and instead of a one acre garden, I have three pots on the patio which give me just as much pleasure. It's a lifestyle choice, do you want to settle down, or do you want to live free? The funny thing is, I am so happy now, that I worry more about screwing up and losing my apartment than I ever did about losing my house. otherwise, now is a very good time (best in my short life) to buy a house. The biggest mistake I made was taking out a fixed at 10%. But now, I think if I was going 30 year I would take out a fixed. If you like hanging out at home depot, buying is good, if you like punching in 10 numbers on your cell phone anytime something breaks renting is great. Now when I say rent, I'm talking apartment vs house, no way today would I rent a house, hell you can buy and if you don't like it you can live there for free for a year and walk away. So maybe a better question is house vs apartment? If the answer is house, I would definately buy.
My attitude is 1) All things being equal, rent (for reasons of flexibility and mobility as stated). 2) Consider buying if the property represents a compelling long-term investment opportunity. I've rented the same 1700 square foot condo for 5 years -- though I could have bought at any time -- because the opportunity was never right to purchase. But in context of the right long-term opportunity, the foregone utility of a down payment is not that big a deal in my opinion (depending on what your financial picture and cash flows look like). Having 70 - 80% of liquid net worth committed to trading strategies is probably enough imho -- if you feel you have to have 100% in play, you may be either missing a trick (getting extra leverage through OPM makes more sense), pushing too hard (at least a little diversity is good), or still trying to break out of scrapper mode. I would like to buy a high quality destination / vacation type property in the next two years or so. The advantage of such is that high end luxury properties with unique features (like fronting Lake Tahoe for ex.) have scarcity premium and hold their value better; plus, if you own a world class residence, you can get involved in high end real estate clubs and swap it out for stays in other comparable residences (trading a week in your chalet for a week at a Spanish villa, hunting lodge in New Zealand etc.)