I know this isn't true everywhere, but the last time I did a similar calculation, based on the historic rate of rents increase in my area, buying the house, then just walking away at the end of 30 years was cheaper than rent.
This is actually sometimes the case, though please double-check your analyses before committing to outliers or "betting the farm". Since it does happen and can work for some people / some places it certainly complicates the simplified dichotomy presented in the OP and this topic.