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I struggle to comprehend non-home-ownership as anything but throwing my money away.

I've been spending under $1500/year on rent for life (not a lot imo), being kind of picky & lucky about living with roommates at many points. I realize I'm going to have to spend well over 2x as much for a house, monthly, after a huge down-payment (hoping to avoid HIP but we'll see).

But even if it isn't an investment, it's not throwing rent money away. I realize there's a couple thousand a year in property tax, money needed for maintenance. But man, it just feels wild seeing money disappear as it does to rent.

I own a home but not for financial reasons, mostly personal.

In HCOL areas, renting honestly is less risky (smaller % of your income to housing), more flexible (stay for 5 years or 1), less headache (text your landlord to fix your sink). The hidden costs, fees, and opportunity cost of home ownership usually are a bit more than renting and investing the difference in a index fund.

A lot of people don’t treat home as investment. It has strong emotional value and sense of ownership where you can do (almost) anything you want with your home. There is not so much autonomy with rental properties.
It's not even a good investment https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-10-15/the-econo...
This goes against The Wealth of Nations' view of productive land & capital ownership.

A home gives people investment opportunity to themeselves be more productive.