But we now find ourselves in a strange situation where businesses (i.e., landlords) can deduct property taxes but individuals cannot. So it shifts the balance in favor of renting because one major cost (at least in SF/LA/etc) is no longer deductible to most individual homeowners.
I found it odd that as the tax bill was winding its way through Congress, no one asked why businesses should be allowed to deduct SALT, but individuals should not be able to. I can't think of a good reason for this, and I am a (former) corporate tax lawyer.
Yes, individuals should get to deduct their property taxes... but only after they start paying income tax on imputed dividends.
Living in CA with near 10% marginal state income tax above $100k means that if you're buying a $1M home you're probably hitting the 10k without property tax.
Deductability of interest (and property tax) is a lot smaller than it was before with the new tax code. On a $1M house for a married couple, you might get ~$9k back but (in CA) that's offset by the $12k (EDIT: likely non-deductable due to SALT max) property tax.
Anyway, using my own calculator (https://medium.com/@usaar33/an-up-to-date-buy-or-rent-calcul... with other defaults), the situation you describe only works if the market is offering a price/rent ratio of 14 (years) or less (which is true in much, but not all, of the country).
Regardless, there's a lot of added costs to ownership: property taxes, HOA fees, loss of leverage as you pay down mortgage, closing costs, etc.