Really interesting points made here. I have a question for you. My husband and I currently rent a 1 bdrm apartment and it feels too small for us and our pet family. To upgrade would mean paying more per month. But, we could buy a small house with a little land (our dream — more space for our hobbies) and pay the same amount we currently are per month, but be putting that toward a house. That seems like a smarter investment to us, plus we get the added upgrade of not having to deal with restrictive pet policies that affect our beloved animals. It feels like in your article you only address owning a house as some form of showing off or even a sense of obligation. But for us, we’d finally have more room and space to breathe. I don’t feel that my desire to own a house and land falls under either reason you outlined here. But we don’t live in Southern California anymore, and land/houses are much cheaper around here.

So here’s my question — doesn’t it make more sense for us to own than rent, considering how expensive it would be for us to rent a bigger place? We’d be putting at least 20% down up front.