We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one. However, there are a few items from your article whose impact you underestimate.

Below are three instances where you say it makes sense to rent, but you claim that these are few and far between. I think they are much more common than you might think. (My comments in italics.)

• You can’t afford the down payment

People can hardly save for their emergency funds, much less a down payment. 23% have $0 in emergency savings, 40% have $400 or less, and 58% have $1,000 or less.

I think we would agree that if you can’t afford $1,000 in emergency savings, then you can’t afford a down payment on a home. So 58% of the population is automatically disqualified from a home purchase.

• Your income isn’t stable and/or high enough to afford the mortgage payments

This applies to the majority of the US population.

According to the quarterly U.S. Home Affordability Report, “…median home prices in the fourth quarter of 2019 were unaffordable for average wage earners in…71 percent of the U.S. counties analyzed in the report.”

And this report assumes only a 3% down payment, not your assumed 20%.

• You’re likely to move within a few years

The median home seller lived in their current home for 10 years, which is only 25% of your assumed 40-year timeline.

75% of Millennials and about 58% of Generation X plan to live in their current home for 10 years or less. That’s a lot of moving in a short amount of time.

—

I’ve written this in other responses, but I’ll repeat it here. I estimate that about half of current homeowners should not own their home. That is roughly 40 million of the existing 80 million homeowners.

This also means that 40 million people should own their home.