[fintstone]

I have never paid more to buy a house than to rent a similar home except for here in Las Vegas. The examples cited really only exist in California and other greatly overpriced areas. In most areas of the country, it costs little more to buy than rent, often less...so you are taking nothing from what you would invested in other instruments. Even if there is no increase in value of the home over time, you pay down the mortgage and eventually own the asset (likely worth hundreds of thousands) for the same price as renting the same home (where you would have nothing).
For example, I bought a house in Albuquerque about 10 years ago. I paid $235,000 with about $10,000 down payment. I have a fixed rate 15 year mortgage. The payments are about $2k per month. About $1000 of that goes to principal each month. Rent for a similar home would be about $1800-$2000 (If you could find one for rent) and the house is now worth about $450,000. I owe much less than $200,000 and the home will pay off in just a few years. If I had stayed in my rental which cost almost as much and not nearly as nice Smaller, only 2-car garage, etc), I would have likely lost my $10,000 that I put down in the last stock market crash as I did the rest of my stock portfolio. I also would not have been able to take advantage of the mortgage and property tax writeoff that were included in the mortgage payments. I have had similar experiences with every other home I have purchased. The only way I could have made a better choice, would to have been to buy two houses.

If landlords were not getting a good deal and making money on the homes they rent you, why do you think they do so? Should we assume that landlords are financial neophytes or are they just generous enough to be happy to contribute to your lifestyle by losing money each month they rent to you?