if your burn as a renter is substantially lower you could invest the difference in a non-real-estate asset and make a lot more return, in many cases.
In my area, the price-to-rent ratio is nearly 1:1. When I bought my house in 2015, my mortgage payment (30 year fixed) was about $1,500/month (Plus ~$400/month property tax). Zillow estimated the rental value at $1,700/month. From the listings I've seen in my area, Zillow's rental value is pretty close to what people are paying.
In my case, I would have been insane to choose to rent instead of buy. The thing to remember is that rent always goes up. 30 years from now, the rent could easily be anywhere from $4,000-7,000/month. Meanwhile I'll be making my final $1,500 mortgage payment.
Yeah, if my water heater explodes, I'm on the hook for it. But a single month of savings in the difference between renting and buying years from now would cover the cost.
Renting is so much cheaper in the long run as I can earn so much more on that money difference with various investments like multi-family realestate.
Unless the house appreciates a lot very fast, or you have very low interest rates, it’s very unlikely that a house in these cities ($650k, for example) will make you money at all in the mid-term, let alone beat renting.