> I think less people are interested in actually owning their housing.

How do you reconcile this impression of yours with the fact that housing prices are shooting up in all major cities, and have been so for decades? Why is this happening if fewer people are actually interested in owning their own housing?

As a sidenote: in my own personal experience housing is the single major issue of all my close friends and family, but it's only an option for a small minority of them. In fact, I have never met a single person who was in the financial position to buy a house/apartment and didn't do so.

Simple, rich people looking for stable assets. I mean sure its not as simple as that but this is generally what is happening in my city. Old space with smaller houses is bought and built on by big housing companies. More and more space in the city is owned by a few big (some stock traded) companies.

I live in Switzerland and a lot of my social circle is in tech, so i know quite some people who have the financial means to own their housing but only few do. Most in the high income spectrum even use the flexibility of moving regularly.

I personally don't consider buying a house anytime soon either. I could prolly afford the house i rent, however i dont live near a city, i highly doubt the value would ever rise, more the opposite as the house is old and needs regular repairs. Buying the house would be like 350 times the rent, at least. Plus all the repairs are suddenly my problem.

But you lose the ability to continue to rent if the landlord doesn't want to continue, aka you can get kicked out.

And any costs to maintain a livable condition is going to just be added to the cost of the rent anyway, so it's not like you're actually saving money.

Buying as its own costs of course, and sometimes it's more cost effective to rent. The most unuseful answer, hence, is that it depends on the specifics.

I agree it really comes down to the individial situation.

However both points are kinda non issues due to our renting laws and the more or less standard contract around here. Getting kicked out only works with a reason, plus a prior notice from i think at least 3 months plus they are not allowed to increase the rent just for maintaining liveable conditions (i.e. repairs that have to be done).

But sure if you are willing to think and calculate in long terms (~30-50 years) buying often is the cheaper option. Yet comes with an additional workload (taxes, repairs, ...)

> who is by law obliged to keep the house in a liveable condition.

Depends on the country. In Poland, the landlord is only responsible for heavy/structural repairs (cracks in walls, broken windows etc.), while everything else, like clogged pipe, broken fridge etc., is actually tenant's responsibility by law, and they can be held responsible (witholding of deposit, lawsuit) if they neglect it.