Renting honestly can be a better deal, especially if you have the discipline to stick excess money in the market consistently. In fact, your returns are likely better than just using a house as a forced savings account. In my neck of the woods, we have seen rental inversion too.
I mean you can phrase it this way. Or you can phrase it as homeowners are willing to play a premium for stability / forced savings. (And to be less generous, homeowners may be getting cheaper access to capital than otherwise available to a renter; espsecially as the homeowner locks in ~2% interest rate while a margin loan has increase to 10+% [1]).
However, for markets with low construction and strong demand I'm pretty sure home ownership comes out ahead. Like look at housing prices in the bay area historically vs current rents. That said, you need a handicap'd rental market for renting to be worse so the general situation is it's better _iff_ you invest the difference.
[1]: https://www.schwab.com/margin/margin-rates-and-requirements
I will also note, that the notion of having access to a cheap line of credit, like a HELOC, can be a fantastic tool when used correctly. But... I'm also seeing folks abuse this to keep up with the Joneses. And when times get tough, they won't be able to pivot and might end up defaulting and then losing their home in the process.
The overall state of the economy will still need another major shakedown before those elements of society get their wake-up call. It sorta started happening with Liberation Day, but we bounced back rather quickly... so who knows when that would happen.
Property taxes, HOA fees, maintenance, appliances randomly breaking and resulting in bills of thousands of dollars...
the ability to affix things to the walls without worrying about marks when you have to move out
If you care about the sale price you will worry about that, among many other things.
Marks on the walls from hanging pictures is not going to meaningfully change the sale price of a house, please be serious
However it could absolutely lose you your damage deposit when renting