If the only way people save is "force saving" by diving headfirst into something that sucks all of their other assets in, sure.
How could we make housing a terrible investment?
* It should be illiquid. We’ll make it something that takes weeks, no – wait – even better, months of time and effort to buy or sell.
* It should be something that locks its owner in one geographical area. That’ll limit their options and keep ’em docile for their employers!
* It should be leveraged! Oh, oh this one is great! This is how we’ll get people to swallow those low returns!
(copied from amusing thought experiment for another perspective: https://jlcollinsnh.com/2013/05/29/why-your-house-is-a-terri...)
That said, I bought a place to live anyways.
Homeownership is advertised as owning an extremely leveraged illiquid asset whose margin calls take years, which is the only reason why it works for people that don't have enough cash to be financially independent another way.
I'm not going to claim renting is universally bad, as it has some upsides (mainly flexibility), but it's definitely financially less savvy than buying, and is generally something you wouldn't want to optimize for at high salary.