My landlord for 15 years raised rent exactly once when property taxes had a large jump one year, and was already under market when I started the first lease.
His mortgage was long paid off and he optimized for least hassle vs max money. Worked out for both of us - I called him maybe once a year at most, and he had a decent passive income stream reliably come in without worrying about 2am phone calls because a $50 thermostat broke. He had a nicely appreciated property to sell in his eventual retirement.
It was a 3BR place with a yard larger than I own now. Granted fit and finish is nowhere comparable, but I pay about 4x in mortgage and taxes than what I was paying him for about 1.5x the space.
Such arrangements are increasingly more rare as everything becomes a finance game, but they can still be sought out and developed.
An enormous number if rentals are owned by private equity not by individuals, so rental markets are pretty dominated by landlords min/maxing for peak financial outcome
If you want to compare the costs of renting and buying, you need to compare renting=(rent payments + renter’s insurance) vs. owning=(mortgage payments + property taxes + insurance + maintenance and repairs + equity appreciation / depreciation)
> Average rents are cheaper than average mortgage payments (homeowners insurance and property taxes included) in all 50 of the largest U.S. metros in 2025, with the cost difference between the two growing in all but 12 of those metros since last year, according to Bankrate’s Rent vs. Buy Study.
> Over the last year, the study found average mortgage payments (including principal, interest, homeowners insurance and property taxes) increased while average rents either declined or remained stable in nearly all the metros we analyzed.
> Housing experts said the fact that it’s cheaper to rent in all 50 metros in 2025 is a broader reflection of rental and housing market conditions across the country.
[1] https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/rent-vs-buy-affordabili...
If you compare homes and apartments in the same location, the gap grows even wider. Yes, $4,000 a month in Manhattan is expensive.
But $4,000 might be JUST the HOA cost for buying in the same area. Never mind the 10 million dollar mortgage.
(Spoiler: fake numbers, actually do the math for your city)
The average mortgage is for a family, the average rent is for a broke young worker or student living in a much smaller and worse accommodation.
Renting is always more expensive than a mortgage for the same housing unit, because the landlord needs to make a profit from his tenants.
Cooking the numbers won't change reality. The truth beats all the lies, no matter how many lies.
Even a basic Google search would have saved you needing to post that comment.
[1]https://www.zillow.com/research/renters-housing-trends-repor...
For the same accommodation, renting is always more expensive than owning.
Which tells us exactly what the GP brought up: renters are younger than buyers.
This is a common case. I recently sold a house with a mortgage where my carrying costs were far below that of any buyer of the house, meaning I could break-even renting at a rate that would leave a new buyer losing thousands of dollars per month. You'd be an idiot to not rent in that market but there is no shortage of buyers.
There are many markets where the rental rates are far below mortgage costs for long periods of time.