(Of course this all depends on the alternative too: renting regulations vary widely over the world in how strong the position of the occupants is wrt rent increases and landlord initiated termination)
A house can easily lose its value or at least cause large expenses, e.g. if the cellar floods or develops mold problems. Or if the surrounding neighborhood becomes worse.
Selling houses has a large transaction cost.
I really don't see much benefits to owning over renting. I'd rather have 200k in a diversified portfolio that earns me 5k a year after taxes and has a much lower probability of losing 30% of its value while living in an apartment in a central location than own a house in a suburb that costs me a few thousand a year in upkeep and taxes. I'd likely need to buy a car too in that case, which is another few thousand a year.
From a financial point of you a difference is that to do this you need to have 200k cash, while you can borrow most of the money to buy a 200k house.
There is a leveraging effect when investing in property.