Thats the issue though, you're thinking of it without considering the costs of buying and owning a house.
To give a very simplified example.
£500k house. 10% deposit. 5 year time frame. 4.5% mortgage
£15k stamp duty
£7k associated costs for solicitor, surveys, mortgage, moving costs etc.
Monthly repayment of £2500 and after 5 years you would have paid off ~£55k from the debt. You would have paid £150,000 to the bank over that time so £95,000 in "dead money".
So that house has effectively cost you £117,000 over 5 years in "dead money" that hasn't gone to paying down the house. Thats £1950 per month in dead money.
Now around here a £500k house would probably cost you about £2-2500/month rent. So yes, its just about a better bet purely financially as long as you don't have any large costs incurred as the owner of the house.
If you consider the opportunity cost loss of that £50k on the deposit though, its not quite as good. That £50k invested would likely be worth about £70k now so that completely kills the value in it.
People massively overestimate how much of their mortgage payment is actually going into accumulating equity. The reason people massively overestimate this usually is because house prices have gone up steadily over the years so you have built up a lot of equity but thats not from paying your mortgage, its from the market rising.
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