What is so great about owning vs. renting?

Everyone's experience with the fundamental need for shelter may be different, but having heard from the elite for so many years about the virtue of owning a house I would like to apply some personal experience to this aspect of life. Individuals and groups make decisions based on the utility, value, or benefits of those choices, trying to maximize gains or minimize losses. At least that is how humans operate in the economic world of rational actor theory. Tradition, propaganda, and ignorance can influence the rationality of actions. I recall Paul Krugman writing about the particular fixation on home ownership in the Anglo-Saxon world in The Conscience of a Liberal, "an Englishman's home is his castle." 

So, it might be a question worth examining in light of the financial meltdown that was caused by too many exotic mortgages and too many buyers not ready for them. I'm not going to play the "blame the victim" card so many do, that it is the fault of people buying and not the brokers and banks. All you have to look at is who gained and who lost to tell the real story, banks bailed out and millions foreclosed on out in the street. But that really isn't the point of why I'm writing.

Maybe it is just me, but we seem to be living in a much more transient society these days, changing jobs and residences far more often than in the past. When I got out of the service I had to live with my folks for a few months while I got a job and readjusted to civilian life but rented my first apartment soon thereafter. It was a modest Cape Cod house that my stepfather was trying to sell, so I was the "caretaker" in the short term. He cut me a deal on rent so that he had someone to mow the lawn and stuff until it sold and not eat the whole mortgage payment. That arrangement only lasted a few months as well, as did the apartment after that, and the apartment after that. I even traded my compact car in on an SUV so I could pack easier and never really bought any furniture beyond the handmedown bed, couch and dresser my parents gave me since I never lived anywhere long enough to need it.

I finally said 'enough!' and bought a modest Cape Cod house just like the one I started out in, but for three times the rent (mortgage+escrow) and twice what I was paying on my last apartment. Society teaches us that, even on such a modest scale, buying and owning is superior to renting because of tax deductions and the value of property always goes up. Right? How many people have found that to be true, show of hands? I think I did get a bit of a tax advantage through the years (I actually lived in that house longer than any other place in my life) but I do not think I came out ahead of friends who rented comparable houses. How about rising value and increasing equity? Well, as most people did in those days, I refinanced to a lower rate and my payment went down but it added in fees more than what I had paid down in principle.

Then, after two layoffs and a divorce I finally said goodbye to that house. The initial sale price was 19% higher than what I paid 6 years previously, which is not out of line by any means (the previous owners doubled the price in 7 years) but that was a seller's market and I needed to move during a buyer's market. I moved in December and the house didn't sell until the next November, after paying the realtor's fee I came out $5k ahead but had to pay $7k in mortgage payments during that time. So, it was pretty lousy for me but good for the realtor and bank. I'm not saying owning=bad, renting=good. Twice before that I was kicked out of apartments because the house sold to someone new, but man, does it have to be so hard just to keep a roof over your head?

My wife and I are thinking about moving, whether in the next three months or three years, and hoping that what happened to my old place doesn't happen to us with this one. But with job changes, school changes, and a growing family, the future is pretty uncertain right now. I know I had a greater point to this post, but it seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle. I think it was that the benefits of owning, mostly the tax deductions, have been meaningless because our standard deduction was greater than itemizing (I know that jarrs against the popular myth of how overtaxed Wisconsinites are) and units in our building are selling for less than what we owe on the mortgage, right now with the commission we'd probably lose money selling. So, I think the point was, in my family's situation, we have all the responsibility and none of the benefits for owning. It seems to all come down to luck, just like Arriana Huffington said recently. In the On-Your-Own society, there are a few winners and a lot of losers and the deck is stacked pretty far against us regular folks.