For-profit housing is a massive racket. Investment firms posing as housing developers get tax breaks for buying up properties, inflating the market, pricing out families, and renting those same homes back to the community to pay the mortgage on their investment, plus profit. What fucking purpose do they serve society? Pure predatory capitalist greed at the expense of our housing. For-profit housing needs to be banned. Investment real estate needs to be regulated until all our citizens can afford to buy homes in their localities.
Is it though? You get the same home and get to own it if you had enough down-payment. The only thing landlord has the renter doesn't is the capital for down-payment.
There are people who can't save up for a down payment and therefore wouldn't be able to responsibly take care of a house even if they were given one.
There's people who don't want to own a house. A house comes with a bunch of costs and responsibility.
Your furnace goes out in winter, bam, that can be an expensive service call or several thousands of dollars to replace.
Your sewer line backs up because of tree roots on a Sunday or holiday and now it's several hundred dollars to get a drain company out there.
Need a new roof? That's a $5,000+ expense all at once.
These are just a few examples. There's quite a number more. Some people like knowing that expenses like that are covered by someone else.
In the grocery store example, there's people who like growing their own food. For others, they'd rather someone else do that even if they're paying a markup to buy it from a grocery store, because they can get everything in one place.
60-65% of households in the USA are homeowners, either outright or through a mortgage. 80-90% of households in Eastern Europe are homeowners. It's pretty clear that people who are perennial renters are mostly people who cannot clear the financial hurdle of a down payment. I don't think the "some people don't want to" line is a solid argument. It's the exception thata proves the rule.
The repairs and property taxes and mortgage all add up to a total that is less than the rent, on average. Otherwise, landlords would have a disincentive, and every landlord would be operating at a loss.
The points you made are points that landlords use as justification for their occupation/position. Are you a landlord?