Not paying increasing rent ever year is actualized money in your pocket to save or invest how you see fit.
The unrealized part is the gain in property value, and your equity in it by paying down the mortgage.
But if you consider never selling the house, paying $2k/mo in rent vs $2k/mo in (mortgage + insurance + property tax) is going to start out break-even, improve as the rent climbs to $3k for the equivalent place to live, and then be a larger benefit after 30 years when that housing payment drops to just tax and insurance.
I pay $2500/mo to rent a house that was purchased for $280k in 2015 and is now worth about $550k. That's comparable rent to what I would pay for a decently desirable 2bd apartment.
Property taxes county + city are about $4300 per year. They have increased recently, and so has the rent.
If they owner put down a 10% down payment, I estimate their total monthly payment for mortgage + taxes + insurance is about $2000, and will likely remain in that ballpark.
That means rent is currently paying the entire mortage/tax/ins plus $6k per year. At the end of their mortgage that monthly cost drops to about $700, and they will own an asset likely worth $500k+.
I'm honestly shocked at how high property tax in the US is.
I'm from the Netherlands, where property tax is based on the municipality. A 400K home where I live amounts to 423€ in yearly property tax. Rate increases over time are capped. And there's many ways to protest against the market value the taxation is based on.
I suppose the basis for this relatively low taxation is that a huge amount of home owners here have a relatively valuable home (even the simplest of homes is expensive) whilst having a fairly moderate to low income.
If property tax would be 10x as your example suggests, I'd suspect 75% would go bankrupt.
That is my rule of thumb - Landlords make a profit by renting to you, otherwise they wouldn't do it. So renting is always going to be more expensive than owning in the long run.
