I disagree, though I know I'll get roasted for it... Landlords do serve a purpose to a point. Not everyone wants to own property. Owning property ties you to a particular place, makes it difficult to leave. If you know you want to stay in an area for the rest of your life, or even just the next 10 years, absolutely, you should be able to buy, and not being able to is a societal failure. But if you don't know where you want to spend the rest of your life, you still need shelter now, and renting provides that, and when you decide to go somewhere else, it's relatively easy. One of my bigger regrets in life was feeling pressured to buy a house in 2005... Just in time for the subprime mortgage crisis. I had a traditional mortgage, but nonetheless, my house went from $150k to <50k in months. I was stuck. Couldn't sell without coming up with extra money to pay off the mortgage, but I wasn't in as bad shape as some people, I could afford the payments, so I couldn't justify walking away, just had to wait for it to rebound, which took another 5 years roughly. Had I been renting, I would have been able to leave much more easily.