I mean, it is certainly possible to be uprooted every year as a renter. But I've lived in two places for 14 years as a renter, and switching from one to the other was a significant upgrade. The first apartment was even rent controlled, so I was guaranteed a renewal lease at a controlled amount, and I had lots of protections.

In fact, it's renting that allowed us to upgrade our place when we had the opportunity, as we didn't need to sell our place in order to be able to buy a new one - we just moved our stuff over.

And to your point:

> It converts your wealth into a usable asset (a house). You can't build a shelter out of bricks of cash, or convert a money market account to a nursery.

You absolutely can do that - it's called "Renting" or "airbnb" or "subletting". The challenge is turning a usable asset back into a pile of cash if macroeconomic forces play against you.

As someone who generally agrees with you on the benefits of renting, my family has been uprooted twice in the past two years by landlords who wished to convert their assets into cash. And the most recent time, it was a forced downgrade due to rising rents. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

> Kids, spouses, and most people with friends, don't care to be constantly uprooted or at the mercy of a landlord who is likely to raise prices every year.

It does not have to be this way. My apartment is owned by a housing cooperative, and every renter is also a member of the cooperative. The cooperative is required to act in the best interest of all its renters, so while apartments are being redeveloped all the time (e.g. adding lifts to existing apartment blocks), rents are remarkably stable. And the cooperative literally cannot terminate my lease. Unless I misbehave, only I can terminate the contract.

(This is in East Germany. A lot of apartment blocks constructed in the GDR era are now owned by cooperatives like described above.)

You are wrong on the whole wealth issue.

If you are are renting, then you are paying significantly less than a morgage.

If you don't have a morgage, you can put a bunch of extra cash into investments that make more money than housing "investment".

And once that stock market investment increases, you can spend all that extra money you got on anything you want. You could even use it to buy a house! Probably even a bigger or more valuable house than if you "invested" in a morgage years ago.

One of the issues with home buying, and I hate this, is that banks are more than happy to help you take out a giant loan to help you buy a house. If you speculate correctly your gains are much higher.

I live in mine. The increase in value and dividends paid each year far outstrip my rent and bills.

>You can't live in or raise kids on a stock portfolio.

4% rule?

Turning cash into houses is a big business.